The Pirate
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Very AU. Alternate Doctor. Fem Doctor. Theta Sigma, daughter of the House of Lungbarrow - but is the daughter of renegade Time Lord the Corsair, accused of murder, theft, and exiled from Gallifrey. Watch as she emulates her father and becomes the Pirate. Rated M for sexual situations.
1. Chapter 1 The Murder and the Thief

Disclaimer - I don't own Doctor Who, I only own the alternative Doctor stories I'm now posting.

Feedback - highly appreciated. I am trying to do something new.

The Murder and the Thief

* * *

The universe and time.

Every different decision shapes a different outcome for all. Parallel universes and the alternate timelines are the possibilities that come out from a different set of circumstances. Alternate timelines have been likened to a river, with each new decision leading off into a different fork and then branching out into a new reality. Sometimes these changes are natural, sometimes they are caused by chance or by design. The Time Lords of Gallifrey, knowing that the creation of an alternative timeline drastically shortens the life expectancy of a universe, frown on these changes. But they can happen. This 'river' of possibility always flows, but it can be interrupted, diverted, and shaped.

Sometimes these events are like dropping a brick or a stone into the river, where it creates ripples that reverberate everywhere and everywhen. Whenever something ripples across the river's surface, anything can and will drastically change. This time...the events and the changes were caused by a Time Lord who was never meant originally be involved with a single woman...but did. It was not a fixed point.

* * *

The balls held by the Lungbarrow family were usually lavish occasions while the creme de la creme of Time Lord society attended. Inside the dimensionally transcendental ballroom, dressed in their robes the Time Lords milled around with the Time Ladies and exchanged pleasantries, but the ball was like many other Time Lord affairs. It was purely political. Many a family feud had been started at a ball, and many had been resolved in much the same way, but the balls on Gallifrey were traditionally used by the Time Lords as a means of gathering intelligence on rivals or friends.

More often than not the balls were just a way for the Time Lords to make contacts and open connections which would help them later in life.

If there was one thing the heiress of the House of Lungbarrow was thankful for it was the fact she didn't need to wear the traditional Time Lord ceremonial garb, but that didn't mean she wasn't wearing robes.

Theta had never liked the head collars and the skullcaps - both were symbolic, of course. It seemed everything on Gallifrey was symbolic in some fashion - the ceremonial garb with the long robes, the head collar and the skull cap depicted the original spacesuits the original Lords of Time had worn when they'd created the Time Vortex and the Eye of Harmony.

But the Time Lords didn't need to wear the same garb at every event, and Theta was thankful that also covered the balls her family usually threw, and she cursed her father, not for the first time, for making her attend the ball.

Dressed in the long red robes that denoted the Prydonian chapter, the robes were much lighter and less heavy than the ones Theta had worn over the 364 years of her life so far, but the robes didn't exactly show the young Time Lady's athletic figure, the skull cap hid her long dark brown hair but didn't hide her pretty face with the hazel eyes. Still in the prime of her first incarnation, Theta mingled with the rest of the crowd, doing her duty as the heiress of the Lungbarrow family even if she didn't want to be there.

She also used the opportunity to avoid her parents.

Theta was not stupid; balls like this one was a good place to set down the foundations of a marriage contract. But it was too bad Theta didn't want to get married any time soon. She hadn't spent 100 years of her life as part of a TARDIS crew to spend the rest of her lifetimes as a porcelain doll, meant to be put on display but never touched. She hadn't been spending her days since then working in Temporal Control and learning what it meant to be a Time Lady.

She wanted to leave Gallifrey.

She wanted to become a renegade Time Lady, free to live her life the way she wanted, and why shouldn't she? She was a Time Lady, a member of the most oldest, most revered species in the universe. She should have the right to decide what to do with her life without having to parade up and down like a trophy on the arm of a Time Lord husband chosen for her by her family.

It was almost incomprehensible for any Time Lord to want to leave Gallifrey, but Theta did.

Theta wanted to grab a TARDIS and just leave the planet, but she wasn't ready yet because she still had so much to do, and so little time to do it, but that didn't mean the dream was old. It was still very much alive.

Theta had become bored and fed up with the Lundbarrow family for years, even before her father's treatment of her had landed them into the present state of their relationship; non-existent. Oh, Quences had never abused or beaten her, but he was emotionally negligent. He never bothered to hide his annoyance the heiress to his family was a female, and he had never hidden his desire to see her married to another powerful family, combining their fortunes and political interests with his and creating some kind of dynasty.

That was typical of Time Lord existence.

For all the Time Lords postured and preached, they were the Lords of Time, and the academicians of history and science, they were a very political people, and Theta despised it.

She didn't want to be the brood mare for another family. She had her own interests, and they didn't extend to doing what other Time Ladies who forgot their training at the Academy did with themselves.

Theta wanted to live her life and not spend her days sitting around dully, waiting for dull and witless Time Ladies while her "husband" went off and had babies with a string of mistresses; she wasn't stupid, she knew her father was guilty of infidelity. But then, Theta thought to herself darkly, mother's not exactly innocent. Those rumours about me not being Quence's daughter.… But she was content to remain in ignorance at not knowing if she had brothers and sisters outside the family. She didn't care. She wasn't even sure if she and her father were even related.

On Gallifrey, committing acts of theft was usually ignored unless you went after something really big. But truthfully, Time Lord security was incredibly overrated. Many Time Lords believed their race was the pinnacle of development, and protected by the transduction barriers they didn't need to fear alien attacks, but they had forgotten one tiny detail.

Their own people. How many of them were criminals? Every person was different, and there had been an underworld on Gallifrey long before Rassilon himself was born. This underworld did everything; assassination, theft, murder, murder for hire, protection, drugs, smuggling, prostitution, and all kinds of nasty crimes that modern Time Lords would've found disgusting. But then, they believed everything that wasn't in their rather narrow view of the world was disgusting and uncivilised.

When Theta had been younger, she had been bored; none of her younger siblings really wanted to play with her, her parents just foisted her off on others, so her interests turned to other pursuits. She had studied arts but her real interests were reading. And she came across pirates and piracy. Theta had been instantly hooked, and she became even more fascinated with pirates and thieves.

During her first years before the age of 8, she learnt how to pick locks and how to break into secure places. Despite being female and more vulnerable than most since kidnappers were probably going to be more experienced than her when it came to mental manipulation even though Borusa himself had praised her for her skill in being good at telepathy, Theta had learnt quite a lot about burglary. She only had to hide the fact she was attending the Prydonian Academy; the Gallifreyan portion of the planet's population really weren't fond of the Time Lords.

But the fact didn't change the fact than even when the elite of Gallifrey were Time Lords and the guardians of history, and they were sitting on top of the Eye of Harmony and had access to the Web of Time, there was still an underworld full of people who didn't give a damn about the Time Lords or their narrow minded views. Another thing, some Time Lords didn't care, but they helped the underworld by using their TARDISes to travel across space and time, and they would pick up all kinds of things to be sold on the black market and make a small fortune. The High Council didn't seem to care, either that or they had other things on their mind, or they believed it all beneath their notice. Theta Sigma believed that was the truth, and she had been committing burglaries for quite a few years during her time in the Academy.

When she'd first learnt from the shobogans how to become a more proficient criminal, Theta had not expected it all to be so straightforward. It was ironic, for what was considered to be the most advanced, most mighty race of the Universe, the Time Lords didn't seem to have a care in the world about the crime going on on their own home turf.

Theta had read books and heard accounts from the older shobogans about how life had been before Rassilon even during those Dark Times. What had entranced the people of Gallifrey in those days, what accounted for the virtually religious attitude of their accounts, were the opportunities. In those days the universe was still being explored, new planets were being colonised, new technologies opened doors to new possibilities.

What shamed Theta the most was the thought her people had forgotten all that, and became spoon fed little drones, servants to history and to the High Council who had practically banned their people from doing anything constructive or creative. It was one thing for the Time Lords to be told to stay unchanging because the Web of Time needed to remain stable, but Theta truly didn't think that stabilities should mean her people become so complacent that they ignored the kind of life that was going on out into space.

Thousands of years ago, solar systems were being charted, new bacterias yielded new medicines, new vaccines and new species were discovered everyday. Even during the Time Program where the founders of the Time Lords had gathered to transform Gallifrey and its people into the Lords of Time, where Rassilon and Omega had worked to create the Eye of Harmony and the Web of Time, and then when the first Time Lords went out in the early forms of TARDIS to explore history, the Gallifreyan people had grown and they had become more accustomed to their great powers.

Not anymore. In fact, aside from one or two sciences and technologies, the Time Lords had not really advanced for 10 million years.

TARDISes were practically the only technology that was advanced every century or so, and now there were dozens of models waiting to be used. But even with access to the secret of space time travel, her people rarely, if ever, went out of their way to use it.

Theta had counted the various types of TARDIS, each one with different Type models, some of them rotting away that it made you ask why the Time Lords had even gone to the trouble of creating them. It was such a waste, but Theta planned to change that when she left Gallifrey. But the weird thing was, even with all the evidence surrounding them, and all the proof there was, none of her generation or those above or below her really saw that what had rendered Gallifreyan life so dull were the Time Lords themselves.

The chief villain was Rassilon himself. It was thanks to him and not being clear about the Web of Time needing to remain stable that her people had just not bothered to really advance for so many centuries.

That was one of the reasons she wanted to leave Gallifrey, to escape the boredom of Time Lord life. Theta wanted to continue her criminal career and see if there was something better than what she was doing now. It was one thing to be a successful burglar, but in truth it was becoming harder and harder to burgle anyone anymore, because in the last two years since her graduation from the Prydonian academy the Castellan had started doing his job and going above and beyond the call of duty to catch her.

Another was because she was fed up with the constant ceremonials, the elaborately costumed rituals being forced onto her and the never ending talk of her getting married and having children of her own.

Although Theta put on a brave face that didn't show her feelings, she didn't let it get in the way of one of the means she had at her disposal to forget her family's pushiness. She walked around the room, looking idly around the hall before she found the next mark. It was another Time Lady, and she was taking a ladylike sip from her wine goblet.

Theta crept up behind her, using her telepathic expertise to shield her mind from the others, though that didn't mean she couldn't be seen, and she deftly used the head collar she was wearing and the one the other Time Lady was wearing to shield what her hand was doing. There wasn't anyone in front of the Time Lady who was still drinking copiously though somehow still managing to remain ladylike about how she drank. There was a long, beautiful, diamond and pearl necklace around her neck, and the scanner Theta had used to scan it earlier during the ball's opening had told her the diamonds and pearls were genuine.

Deftly unclasping the necklace, Theta managed to remove the necklace, but she had more problems taking it away without being noticed and rustling the jewels. But the Time Lady was still drinking, and Theta could still hear her voice - in such close proximity it was easy to hear her mental voice - and it sounded like the words of a babbling woman. Rassilon, she's drunk. Theta took the chance and unsnapped the necklace, and gathered them up quickly before they rustled more than a second, and she secreted them into the inner pocket of her robes where it joined the other pieces of jewellery she had managed to take from the rest of the guests.

Theta walked away with a smile on her lips, and headed out to look for someone else.

She quickly found another one, this time a Time Lord wearing an expensive looking ring. Theta walked towards him, and in the appropriate manner he took her gloved hand and kissed it out of respect for her being the heiress of the Lungbarrow family. Theta managed to twist her fingers around and clasped the ring, and gently slid it off his finger without the Time Lord noticing. Oh, he'd realise it was missing sooner or later, but since Time Lord custom was to kiss the gloved hand of a lady, particularly those belonging to the Houses that were the most important and most powerful, there was a plethora of suspects.

The first thing you needed to know about Theta Sigma beyond the fact she was slowly but surely being driven insane by the near constant pressure of her parents demanding she get married, all for political gain, of course, and not for the little thing that was love and affection, she was a thief.

That wasn't supposed to be glib. Theta had found she had the talent of taking things and not returning them, never mind feeling nothing about taking something that wasn't even hers. It had taken a long time but eventually she had become more and more used to being a thief.

As a child, Theta had devoured all the literature on thieves throughout the history of the universe, and she had fallen in love with pirates of numerous cultures, particularly human criminals.

During her studies, Theta had heard of the Japanese ninja and she had fallen in love with them, and had devoted a lot of her time and energies into studying them and being like them.

Another thing was what she had seen in the Untempered Schism.

Children on Gallifrey were taken from their families by the age of 8 to enter the Academy of their chapter, but before they did that they had to look into the Untempered Schism, a gap in the fabric of reality which showed the Time Vortex. The Time Lords had many ways of accessing the Vortex, and travelling along it to reach other times and places, but the Untempered Schism was the only portal the Time Lords had which showed nothing but the Vortex.

There were no portals, no views of other places or times in the past or the future, but time was relative and Time Lords were taught other events didn't matter.

Children would be expected to stand in front of the Schism, in a draughty cavern lit by traditional sconces fuelled by chemicals to burn them, and they would look into the Schism where they'd then be exposed to the raw power of time and space, all under the watchful eyes of a statue of Rassilon, Omega, and the other Founders. Like many things the statues were a symbol, in the case of the Untempered Schism ceremony, they were there to watch the young Time Lords to be, and let them know of the proud legacy they were about to inherit.

There was a common belief that the Untempered Schism changed the personality of the children who looked into its depths, and saw eternity. In a way it did, but it affected the brains of children who had different beliefs and different mindsets. Theta had grown up cunning, learning how to hide and sneak about, and when she looked into the Schism she saw herself becoming great…..a great thief. Not a bored trophy wife, perpetually bored and living one regeneration after another living the same way, but a criminal who was daring.

Children were inspired, children went mad, and some children ran.

Theta was all three of those things - she was inspired to be a great thief, and she was going to run from place to place, and she was mad to do it all.

No one had been told what she had seen, it was one of her closest secrets, but it wasn't compulsory for the child to speak about what they saw since, for some children, the experiences were different for everyone.

Theta was willing to spend her time in the Academy, learning how to be a Time Lady and she had made friends there, and more than a few rivals, but that was childhood for you. And all that time she practiced learning how to be a thief, with plans to leave the planet and make a living as a criminal, mad to try and inspired to make it happen.

There was not a chance in hell of her staying on Gallifrey. She was going to start checking the TARDIS cradles and find a suitable, advanced TARDIS model and then leave Gallifrey, and hopefully never come back.

Another thing you needed to know about Theta was that she had no idea if her father was really her father. The suspicious looks on her father's face, the looks of detachment and the general lack of care had been bad enough, but it was the arguments she had heard between her mother and Quences. The thought the man wasn't her father was both horrifying and yet comforting to Theta because the man was so detached.

He also seemed determined to get rid of her, to marry her off to another family.

You also needed to take a good look at the young Time Lady to know something else about her; she had once been obsessed with pirates as a child. Obsessive is too kind a description; she loved pirates and thieves, and she had taken it out to the next level. Theta had spent years learning how to be a thief, and she had carried out a few burglaries. Tonight wouldn't be very special either.

* * *

"Theta? Theta!"

Theta jerked and turned to face her father. Like many other Time Lords, it was impossible to tell from the outside how old or how young he was in comparison to other members of their race. The races outside Gallifrey took in the physical appearances of their people to tell how old they were, wrinkles, loss of hair, colour of the skin or the eyes, etc.

But with Time Lords, a race that could regenerate - their bodies broken down into energised plasma and their minds uploaded into a data slice where the body would then be adjusted according to the choice of the Time Lord before being downloaded back into the body and returning to life - it was next to impossible to work out.

A young Time Lord could have the body of an ancient, hunched individual, and an old one could appear to have the body of a hyperactive young person in the prime of life. Physically Quences resembled a tall, elderly looking man with a gaunt face with ice blue eyes, and his skin was as wrinkled as an old apple. He was only a few thousand years old.

Theta bowed her head. "Father," she said respectfully, and then her eyes widened when she saw the Time Lord near him. "Anzor?" she whispered in shock.

Quences smiled and stepped back to let the two of them look at each other without getting in the way. "What are you doing here?" Theta said, surprised, but rapidly getting angry that he was here.

Anzor smiled back at her. "It's good to see you too, Theta," he said.

"I wish I could say the same, but as we both know that is an utter lie. I remember the last time I saw you," Theta snapped back, recovering quickly. "You threatened to turn that Galvaniser on me at full power."

"Youthful enthusiasm," Anzor waved a hand, as though the matter was forgotten. Theta snorted. She might have been terrified of Anzor like everyone else at the Academy, but it wasn't until she'd read a pirate book that she realised that she shouldn't be afraid, so she'd devised a plan to make him pay the price for his actions.

Quence's angry cough redirected Theta's attention. "My daughter, you will come with me," he said evenly, but she would have needed to be deaf not to realise he was angry. "Why do you constantly defy my wishes for you to get married? You are supposed to become one of the most influential members of our people," he all but shouted at her when they were a good distance from Anzor.

"And you think getting me and that stuck up, cowardly bully is going to help me with that?" Theta countered, knowing it was a testament of knowing just how angry her father was if he was resorting to verbal speech to deliver his point. Usually he spoke telepathically, always clouding his mind to stop others from eavesdropping.

But not this time.

"Father, Anzor is scum. He tortured me, he tortured virtually everyone in the Academy, and he got away with it because he managed to threaten us with harm in case we fought back. One of us was brave enough to fight back, and he was encased in crystal and bounced from a high height for his troubles. It's a miracle he didn't die. And now you want me to marry him, especially after I went to all the trouble to document what he was doing?" Theta pleaded.

But her father was firm. "Theta, you will not embarrass this family by not making the effort."

In the end a reluctant Theta was dragged back to Anzor. Theta could see the smirk in his eyes, something he kept hidden from Quences, but she saw it since she had seen it so many times before.

"I shall leave you together, then," he announced and left the two Junior Time Lords behind.

The moment her father had walked away, however, things were not harmonious. Theta swung round and glared at Anzor. "If you even think of trying to arrange a marriage between us so you can make my life hell, I will kill you," she snapped at him.

Anzor smiled at her, showing his rather small teeth but it looked like a leer to Theta. "I don't want to marry you. I just want to talk to you, is that alright?"

"Good, because I would rather regenerate a thousand times in a supernova than marry you," Theta seethed. She had good memories of what had happened the last time this thing had wanted to merely speak with her, and the memory of the pain she had received was something that Theta doubted would ever go away. Not that her father seemed to care.

"Alright then, I'll listen to what you have to say," she replied, deciding to at least hear him out, "and then I'm going. That alright?"

Anzor nodded, but the look in his eyes made it clear that he didn't like being spoken to the way she was, but she didn't care.

Alone in the small chamber near the ballroom, Theta wondered what was taking her former schoolmate so long to come back. After telling him straight that she would listen to what he had to say to her before she left him alone again, Anzor had walked out, down a corridor leading to another smaller chamber, telling her he needed a few seconds to get his thoughts together, which was a bit odd since she had thought that he had already thought about what he had wanted to tell her, and he hadn't come back for a few minutes.

Theta suddenly lost her patience, and she stood up and was about to head back for the party when she heard Anzor's voice in her mind. "Theta…..why?"

Theta swung round, barely noticing that she wasn't the only person to have heard the voice spoken telepathically and beamed into her mind. Gathering her robes into her hands, Theta rushed to the corridor that linked the small chamber with the room she was currently in. The corridor was fairly short, only a few metres and she was at the door to the small chamber in no time, and threw the door open and she gaped in disbelief and horror when she saw what was on the ground.

She had wondered why Anzor had gone into this room of her home because it led to smaller utility room. She'd just bought his lie about getting his thoughts together, but she had never imagined it would lead to this.

Lying on the ground, covered in blood, a knife sticking out of Anzor's chest - Theta needed only a quick glance to see that the knife had gone through both of Anzor's hearts, killing him outright.

Theta was so surprised that when the small bucket of blood splashed over her, she couldn't do anything more than scream, and she looked down at her robes and hands. Her entire midriff and her hands were covered in blood, and she looked down at the body in growing horror.

She stood gazing at the body in shock a bit too longer; she could feel the mental energy of other Time Lords including her own parents behind her, and it took someone roughly grabbing her by the shoulder and throwing her around so fast her head began to spin that she realised the terrible truth.

They believed she had done it. She could feel and hear their accusations inside her mind as easily as she could see it all written as clearly on their faces.

Theta shook her head. "I know how this looks," she tried to explain, "but I didn't do this-"

"Yes you did, you stupid little bitch!" Theta turned to the speaker and found herself looking directly at Anzor's father. "We heard my son, my son, asking you why, why you were about to kill him, and we felt his fear."

"What? That's not what I felt," Theta argued, and she kept on going before the Time Lords could argue back. "I felt no fear whatsoever. I heard him ask why in my head, heard him telepathically say my name, and then I came here and found him-"

"That's enough!" Anzor's father snapped angrily. "The High Council can decide your fate. Hopefully, they will ensure you suffer. Quences, do you nothing to say to your…..daughter?"

Quences approached, his expression so stony that it could have been cut from solid granite. Theta felt her hearts break at his expression; she might have wanted to leave Gallifrey and her family behind, but she didn't want her parents to part with her on such bad terms. "I no longer have a daughter," he said.

Theta staggered back, stumbling a little over the prone body of Anzor, but the Time Lord holding her kept her steady even as her hearts broke, and she turned to her mother and saw the woman actually look at her sadly before turning her back.

She was alone.


	2. Chapter 2 Trials and TARDISes

Author's note - I hope you're enjoying the story.

Trials and TARDISes.

Inside the roundelled control room with the ever present hum, two Time Lords were speaking in conference.

"Well, is it done?"

"It is."

"Good, the copy held out?"

"It did," there was a second of hesitation in the voice of the first Time Lord. "Are you sure this plan is what you wanted?"

The second Time Lord sighed and turned away, only just managing to hide his sneer of disgust. "Look, you and I will get what we wanted the whole time; I get revenge on Theta for humiliating me during our time in the Academy. You, however, get to have her for yourself."

"This was not what I had wanted," the first Time Lord replied, "I didn't want her hurt."

The disgust in the second Time Lord's voice became noticeable now, though the first Time Lord had already known about it beforehand, and had been curious inwardly about what would lead his fellow conspirator to try to hide his feelings.

"What do you see in that little whore?" he spat.

The other Time Lord instantly bristled. "I love her. I think she is perfect for me," he replied darkly. "But she was infatuated with that fool, Koschei-"

"And you can have her, but only when my business is concluded."

* * *

"Theta Sigma, once heiress to the House of Lungbarrow, you have been charged with the murder of Anzor, the son of one of our most respected councillors. And on a minor charge, you have been charged with the theft of many pieces of jewellery, some of them family heirlooms. How do you plead?" The Lord President of the High Council said to her gravely.

Theta closed her eyes and wondered how many more times she should say it before it sank into their heads. Theta was standing in the middle of the Panopticon itself, and knew that this was going to be really bad. The Time Lords holding a trial was a very rare event, normally they didn't conduct a trial except once every few hundred years. At the moment the Panopticon wasn't even filled to full capacity - the High Council were definitely here as were the Time Lords and Ladies who had been at the party as witnesses to the trial. Part of her wondered if the council were doing this to show the population that, instead of being tried in the normal Chancellery hall, they were telling everyone justice was being served.

"I have already given my statement," Theta replied, her head held high despite her haggard appearance and the state of her clothes. "I plead not guilty."

She may have tried to sound imperious, but Theta knew it would do little good since Anzor's father had told the President she was guilty of murder. But she had no other option than to protest her innocence and hope that at least one Time Lord would have the sense to realise she was telling the truth. Unfortunately, so far no one had come forward to raise even an exquisitely gloved finger in protest.

Theta had had a rough night. She had been thrown into a holding cell that you could tell was barely used, and very rarely hosted a Time Lord or Time Lady. Her robes from last night had been removed for forensic evidence since it was covered with Anzor's blood, revealing her thefts, for evidence. The recovery of the jewellery had been added to the charge of murder so that was another reason why everything had gone down the drain. The Castellan had taken a squad of guards and had them strip her rooms at the Academy and at home to pieces while they looked for other signs of her crimes, and although he hadn't said it to her outright yet Theta wondered how long it would be before the Castellan actually put 2 and 2 together, and linked her with the burglar that had been giving him so much trouble.

"Very well," the Lord President said, his cold face not giving away how he was truly feeling, "we shall hear the evidence presented against you."

The Court Usher sounded the call for the trial to begin. As Theta listened to the court proceedings she realised that her trial would probably not last that long. With crisp efficiency, the Castellan told everyone of the investigation so far, and how they had discovered the pieces of jewellery on her person after they had removed her robes from the party from the night before and the investigation into her relationship with Anzor.

Theta wondered how much of this trial was for the benefit of the family, but she wasn't going to ask.

Her Academy professors were also given centre stage and told everyone about her misdemeanours but also her intelligence and skill, but they also told the court how Theta had risked her life against Anzor's galvaniser weapon which had caused great pain to her, and to other students in her year at the Academy. While their testimonies described Anzor as a pretty mediocre student and a bully when the truth of his violent crimes came to light, Theta doubted very much that they would change the minds of everyone here. Anzor was dead and she was accused of his murder. After the academy professors stepped down, the Chancellery guard captain gave his testimony about discovering the pieces of jewellery and dropping in the fact that on many occasions the Lungbarrow family had had events, many of their guests later discovered their jewellery pieces missing.

Quences gave his testimony, looking anywhere but at his former daughter, speaking about her as though she was somebody else he had the displeasure of meeting. He described how Anzor had wanted to meet her, and yes he knew of their history, but he had genuinely believed that Theta and Anzor had grown up. He also expressed regret it hadn't happened. Once Quences was finished with his testimony, other guests came forward and gave their own testimonies.

"We heard this terrible telepathic cry," one Time Lady said, sneering haughtily at Theta; the Time Lady was well rested, her skin made up, and she was wearing a splendid and neat set of robes compared to the haggard figure of Theta. "We heard the poor young man, Anzor, said Theta Why? And then there was fear, pain, and horror, and then nothing. When we arrived we found her covered in blood."

"If I may, my Lord President," Theta suddenly interrupted, hoping to set the record straight.

The President didn't look happy by the interruption, but he nodded so she could say her piece.

"Thank you, sir," Theta said, then she turned to the Time Lady, "You said I was covered in blood, did you see anything nearby that would give the impression the blood was thrown onto me?"

Something in Theta's serious voice made the Time Lady pause. "No."

"Did you see anything like a small tub or a bucket that looked like its contents had been thrown?" Theta asked, hoping that her line of questioning would provoke some thought.

"No."

"Is there a point to these questions?" One of the councillors asked impatiently, , Theta recognising him as one of the lower level councillors that Anzor's father had coveted as one of his little gang of sycophants, but on this occasion he was merely voicing the thoughts going through the minds of everyone in the panopticon.

They didn't believe her. They were too blind to see it. Taking a deep breath Theta said, "When I was near Anzor's body, something threw his blood onto my robes. I wanted to know if there was any sign of a tub or a bucket that could have been used."

Theta hadn't even finished her statement before she realised she was wasting her time. The Time Lords throughout the panopticon didn't believe anything she was saying

Theta wondered and not for the first time how she could have heard something like "Theta why?" and yet hadn't felt those other emotions when she had been so close to Anzor. It made no sense to her, but what upset her the most was how the Time Lords weren't even trying to believe her.

"And you found her covered in blood?" The Lord President clarified.

"Yes, my Lord," the Time Lady replied, shuddering at the thought of the blood she and everybody else had seen covering the floor and Theta's robes.

The President turned to face the Castellan. "Have you matched the blood found on the robes to Anzors?"

"Yes, sir. The blood is definitely Anzor's."

Theta almost snorted. Someone was setting her up, had managed to go to all the trouble of setting her up, so it was very likely they would have gone to the trouble of getting hold of Anzor's blood and not made the mistake of not using Anzor's blood. She still couldn't believe he was dead, but she didn't understand why someone would go to the trouble of framing her. Had someone discovered her identity as the burglar in the Capitol? Everyone now knew she was a thief, and it was likely that at some point the Time Lords would realise what she had been doing.

With a shock she realised the Lord President had begun speaking with the councillors and his aides, including Anzor's father and her own, and then the Castellan.

"Theta Sigma, you have been found guilty of murder and theft," he announced. "Fortunately for you, we are not cruel. We do not kill minors, and as you are still young for a Time Lady, the danger of vaporisation need not apply to you. You shall be exiled from Gallifrey, like your friend Ushas, now known to all as the renegade referred to as the Rani."

Exile. Like the Rani. The thought of having a legitimate reason to be away from Gallifrey filled her with pleasure, but Theta shivered at the thought of vaporisation, and her inside chilled at the thought she could very well have been killed by her own people simply because they couldn't be bothered looking deeper into a case like this. But the thought of exile….. Theta had always wanted to leave Gallifrey, travel through time and space, and begin her criminal career as a pirate out in space.

But not like this.

The Lord Presidents next words were like a death sentence regardless of how he worded them, "However if you ever return to Gallifrey again, you will be vaporised. Castellan, take her away. She shall be exiled later when we have found a suitable TARDIS to take her away."

* * *

The Castellan and the guards led Theta away from the Panopticon and away from the High Council, and the young Time Lady didn't feel any pleasure in being in their presence anyway. There weren't many of them, just four guards including the Castellan himself. None of the guards needed to point her towards the cells or usher her on her way, Theta was smart enough to know there wasn't anything she could do to stop them and besides she wanted to be as far from the High Council as she could. As they trudged back to the cells where she was going to be locked up again, Theta pondered the future she was going to have now, the future that was before her. She wasn't sorry that she was leaving Gallifrey when she'd had plans to become a renegade in the first place, but she hadn't planned or expected it to go like this.

But the exile left her feeling cold - personally, she didn't feel anything for the sentence, but she did feel angry that she was being accused of a murder that she'd stumbled upon. She knew she'd been framed, knew someone had gone to a lot of trouble to telepathically select what they wanted her to hear, and what they wanted the other witnesses to hear themselves.

Theta had just expected that she would one day snap, pack her stuff, take the first TARDIS she could and then leave to become a renegade. In a way becoming an exile would ensure the Time Lords left her alone, unfortunately she hadn't expected the crime to be something like this. Murder wasn't the type of crime the Time Lords regularly dealt with, and there were very few options available simply because the Castellan and the President rarely had to deal with that type of crime. So, Theta could see their logic behind her sentence.

As they walked onwards, Theta paused when she heard something in her mind, a telepathic tug on her mind that she could not ignore. Keeping her face clear of expression, Theta studied the mental signature prodding her mind. It was warm, comforting, and for the Time Lady it was the best feeling she had felt in hours since before and after the trial.

Theta burst into action, swinging her arms behind her to grab the guard behind her, using their unmasked telepathic signatures to work out where they were so she didn't make a mistake. The two guards had been bored by the trial before despite the excitement that something was happening on their watch, but that excitement had atrophied. Theta viciously punched one of the guards in the stomach, grabbing hold of his staser pistol while using him as a shield, and quickly checking the setting and switched it to stun, she fired at the guard before turning the weapon to the Castellan and the final guard. Both had their weapons out and pointed directly at her.

"Think about what you are doing, Theta," the Castellan said warningly. "You claim you're innocent, but if you kill others then you will be even more guilty in the eyes of many."

"He's not dead, he's just stunned," Theta replied. "Besides, I'm already exiled. All I want to do before I leave is find the proof of who killed Anzor, going through all the trouble of setting me up. Don't you find it odd that I didn't run off, that those guests to the party last night heard more than I did?"

Theta had been moving the weakened guard to cover her as she turned him around since there was a corridor leading away from them. Throwing the guard towards the Castellan and the other guard, Theta ran down the corridors.

* * *

Theta pounded down the corridors away from the Castellan, using the telepathic voice to guide her through the Capitol's corridors. Already she could hear the sounds of the alarms. Ducking inside a small, empty anteroom, Theta closed her eyes and used her training to shield her mind from the other Time Lords; it wasn't easy to hide you mind from your own species, but it was possible to fool them for a while. The moment's rest also gave her the chance to focus on the voice calling to her. It wasn't another Time Lord, she could tell that much, but she was pleased there was someone or something out there in the Capitol that was there for her.

It was a dangerous thing for her to do, but she concentrated and focused her mind to see if there were other Time Lords nearby. There weren't any, and so it was safe for her to leave her hiding place and resume her search for the mysterious presence inside her head. As she walked down the corridors, Theta realised she was still holding onto the pistol she'd taken from the guard earlier.

She had never carried weapons on any of her heists in the past; too noisy, the potential for murder even if it might have been an accident would be too great, and there was risk someone else might find it. Theta was tempted to just drop it, but she didn't dare. The pistol might be her only way of getting to her destination without being killed. She didn't see the point in taking the moral high ground at this stage, not with the Castellan's guards hunting her down like this. They knew she was armed, and if they caught her there was a chance one guard would get trigger happy and then shoot her in the back. Besides, the pistol was set to stun, so if she did come across any guards they'd soon recover.

The journey through the Capitol seemed to take forever. There were Chancellory guards everywhere looking for her as she headed to wherever the voice was coming from, and more than once she had needed to duck and hide whenever she realised someone was nearby or coming closer to her. There were quite a few Time Lords around in this part of the city. Some of them were technicians, others were just nobles. All of the Time Lords knew she'd escaped, and her face and description was posted onto every billboard, every thought screen, and posted on the communication net of the Capitol. Theta had also needed to think a few moves ahead of the curve to avoid the Chancellory guards who were doing their jobs better than she'd ever given them credit for. They were searching every room, every apartment, every nook and cranny and so Theta had to think laterally to get to where she needed to be.

It took her a while but she soon found herself close to where the telepathic feeling in her mind became more clearer. Somehow she wasn't surprised that it was the TARDIS cradles. For a moment Theta was hesitant. She had no idea if this was some kind of trick where the Time Lords would just get rid of her by making her think there was a way out, only to exile her properly without ceremony. But she decided to see how this panned out, so she walked through the entrance into the cradle areas.

The TARDIS cradles were huge, larger than the entrance hall of her home. No, she corrected herself, former home. Pushing aside the residual pain in her hearts about the way her parents had treated her, how her father had spoken about her as if she wasn't even there and her mother had just simply turned her back, Theta stepped inside, letting the telepathic feeling draw her nearer. After seeing one or two technicians in the cradles, Theta concentrated on hiding her mind from them, and darted from one TARDIS to another so she could find one. The problem she had was with so many TARDISes in the cradle, it was hard to find which TARDIS the tug was coming from. She walked down the line, past a few Type 45 capsules and past what appeared to be an old Type 30 when she came to the TARDIS the feeling was coming from. Eventually Theta found the TARDIS where the feeling was coming from, and she read the Type and Mark numbers on the small board above the capsule.

"Type 5-3-3," she whispered.

It was a Type 53 Mark 3 TARDIS, and according to the board no one had yet formed a symbiotic link with it yet. Theta blinked in surprise that the most state of the art modern TARDIS at the moment had been calling out to her, but she pushed that aside and headed for the capsule. Like all other TARDISes, the uncamouflaged state of this capsule was a tall, white/silver/grey cylinder with a door in it. Theta pushed on the door, noticing the main locking exterior sensor plate, and she recalled the Type 53 was the first capsule to have such a feature, so instead of just shoving a key into a keyhole you just pressed the key against the plate and the door would open.

But like all the other TARDISes, the Type 53's door was open and unlocked; it was no wonder really why the renegades had such an easy time leaving Gallifrey in a stolen TARDIS if they were left unlocked, but in this case it was clear the TARDISes were just on display.

Theta chuckled when she realised something just as important with that other revelation about the sad state of her people's security procedures. _I could have left this planet whenever I wished,_ she thought to herself, _I could have just walked into the cradles, found a TARDIS, bonded with it and then left Gallifrey._

Oh well. She walked inside the TARDIS. The first thing Theta noticed was the smaller main door when she entered, but she pushed that aside as inconsequential, it shouldn't cause any problems for her on her travels unless she stole something really big, but in that case she could simply materialise the TARDIS around it. She sighed when she saw the console room, and she closed her eyes at the beauty of the ship before opening them again in awe. It had been a long time since she'd walked inside a TARDIS, and she could tell this one wanted her to become its pilot.

Theta walked to the console, her eyes running over the gleaming new controls laid out neatly on the top. Like all new TARDISes, the interior was set to default with its white roundelled walls, white console, and sparse decorations. Theta walked over to the console, and she prepared the ship for the linking. It took only a few minutes before the symbiotic relationship circuits analysed her Rassilon Imprimature to set up the bond with the TARDIS. As soon as she was finished she felt the presence of the TARDIS inside her mind. The previously foggy telepathic feeling deepened and became clearer within her mind.

Theta pulled her hands away from the console, and then she screamed and jumped in the air and then ran around the TARDIS - her TARDIS - in happiness. She had a TARDIS, she could leave Gallifrey. She could do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. Theta grinned as she stretched her hands out towards the console, prepared to set the space/time coordinates, knowing that the Time Lords would not really care since she had been exiled.

But her grin disappeared and she paused. Even if she ran away now, she was still accused of murder, and if she left then she would still have that over her head even if the Time Lords left her alone. Theta ran a hand over her face as she tried to work out what she could do and how she could find the murderer; she couldn't go back in time and see whoever it was who killed Anzor and then framed her. Theta had already been accused of murder and theft and exiled because of those two crimes, she didn't want to make things worse by violating the first law of time. If she went back into the past where her past self was then she'd risk the Blinovitch Limitation Effect, two versions of her in the same point in time. That was a temporal paradox and she didn't dare risk having a paradox, not now, not on top of everything else.

So how could she find the real murderer?

Theta turned a thoughtful look over the TARDIS console. Maybe there was a way the TARDIS could help her after all since the TARDIS could see things she couldn't. She moved over to the telepathic circuits and took hold of the contacts and she concentrated.

 _I want to find the murderer who's set me up for the murder of Anzor. But I can't travel back into my own timeline, especially here on Gallifrey despite the transduction barriers. Do you know anything?_ Theta asked the TARDIS.

TARDISes couldn't communicate since their matrixes didn't allow it, but the TARDIS could send impressions back to their pilots, and Theta had the feeling that the TARDIS did know something about the murder. With the telepathic circuits, Theta set the coordinates of her new TARDIS and compelled the ship to dematerialise.

Dematerialising the TARDIS using the telepathic circuits wasn't a problem since they had just linked to one another, but it was something no other Time Lord would really want to do. Shrugging her shoulders, Theta pushed it away though she would try to develop a few experiments she now had in mind that she wanted to try out on the TARDIS's navigational systems.

It was a very short trip through the vortex but the TARDIS had problems rematerialising in the new location. Theta frowned and checked the controls, and then she realised that the TARDIS couldn't land since the landing zone was another transcendental area. What? Quickly pushing the implications which had suddenly entered her mind, Theta checked the dimensional frequencies between the landing zone and her new ship, and made an adjustment before materialising.

The TARDIS had landed in another TARDIS. Theta looked around the console room, which was virtually identical to the one she had just left and she ran a casual eye over the console before nodding, recognising it as a Type 49. Theta ran a hand over the console before heading over to the computer system and she accessed it. Theta silently checked the computer system and nodded.

She had worked it all out. Now all she needed to do was to check the laboratory, and then she'd find the answers. Walking over to the architectural reconfiguration system, she adjusted the systems so then the laboratory was brought closer to her location in this TARDIS's console room. When she checked the inner door which led to the rest of the TARDIS and saw it did lead to the laboratory, she ran over to her TARDIS, slipping out her key and pressing it against the plate.

After a few minutes, she came back out again and headed for the laboratory. All TARDISes featured a fully equipped laboratory, and this one was as big as one of the classrooms at the Academy. Dominating one of the worktops were three massive glass tanks. Theta walked over to them and examined the purple liquid inside before she nodded. She pulled out a small scanner that she'd taken from her own TARDIS and pressed a few controls before she left and walked back into the console room.

There was someone already there, someone familiar that she stopped but not in surprise.

"So, you've found my TARDIS, then?"

"Anzor," Theta said wearily.

* * *

Author's note - As you've noticed, I want my alternate Doctors to have a more advanced TARDIS. Indeed, the Doctor in reality, according to the Fifth Doctor's audio story Prisoners of Fate, the main enemy is the Doctor's first TARDIS, a Type 50. Understandably, she was angry he'd spurned her for a Type 40. I'm not going to do that.


	3. Chapter 3 Anzor and the Partner

Disclaimer - I don't own Doctor Who.

Anzor and the Partner.

Anzor looked disappointed she wasn't reacting too strongly to seeing he was still alive and well despite being considered dead. "You're not surprised to see me?" he asked, noting her weariness.

"Not really. I was suspicious when that blood was thrown on me, but no one saw a tub," Theta replied. "When did you decide to frame me?" she asked curiously, wondering how long it would take for the High Council and the Castellan to get their acts together.

Anzor snickered. "I've had it in mind for a while. Ever since you humiliated me-"

"You brought it on yourself," Theta snarled. "You bullied and terrorised the academy with that damn galvaniser of yours, all because daddy dearest gave you everything you wanted on a platter, and you were too damn useless with your classes! You want me to apologise for making that recording and sending it around? I won't. You received a diluted form of justice, in my opinion. You received a slap on the wrist, daddy supporting you from behind. What's wrong, can't stand on your own two feet? You should've been locked a padded cell, wearing a straitjacket and forced to endure every round of the damn thing, see how you liked it. I don't think you'd have lasted a minute under it."

Anzor seethed angrily at Theta's tirade. "You little bitch," he snapped, remembering how Theta and the others had conspired to humiliated him, recording him using the galvaniser, and he remembered the punishment he'd received from the Academy and everyone else in general. He had never really gotten over it, and he had promised himself that Theta would pay for what she'd done. He knew she'd orchestrated it from behind the scenes, and had enjoyed every minute of it.

"You used a clone of yourself," Theta said, "and you killed it, sent out two telepathic calls, one aimed towards me, the other to the idiots at that party. And you used your TARDIS, and threw that blood on my robes. I went to your laboratory, and I found the tank it was grown in. Bit elaborate, but simple."

Anzor sneered. "Well done, you'd have made a good detective. The clone was fairly simple to grow, you're right there. It wasn't designed to be a perfect copy, but since the cloning technique I have used to encode my knowledge and experience into the brain cells it knew it's purpose in life was to be used in the plot to frame you."

Theta remembered the events. "Did your father know about your plans?"

"What do you think? Of course he didn't," Anzor was scornful. "He was useful - he got me the tuition needed to become a Time Lord, he helped me get my own TARDIS, but he had no idea of my long term plans."

Theta was about to ask him about those supposed plans before she was interrupted. There was a familiar tingling in the air and suddenly the sounds of a TARDIS materialising filled the room. For a moment Theta thought something was wrong with her new TARDIS and it was leaving her, but her TARDIS was still there. It was another TARDIS that was arriving, materialising in this TARDIS in the the same way her new one did. Had the High Council themselves decided to arrive with the Chancellory guard, and realised that sending a TARDIS into Anzor's own ship was the best way to do it? No, she quickly disproved that idea; the High Council had access to the best Time Lord technology and science had to offer, but they weren't imaginative enough to do something like that, not without outside motivation.

The door opened and Theta gaped. "Magnus?" she whispered in surprise.

Magnus was a member of the Deca, like Theta was, and he was supposed to be one of her oldest friends, but why was he here? It was obvious Magnus knew what was going on because suddenly Anzor looked worried. The arrogantly handsome Time Lord looked between the two, not really surprised by the fact she was there.

Theta couldn't believe this. Ushas had been exiled, Koschei had run away from Gallifrey, Drax had left, Mortimus had gone Rassilon knew where, and Magnus was here, helping someone who'd been an utter bastard to them all during their time at the Academy.

"Why would you work for this thing?" Theta hissed at Magnus, gesturing at Anzor, who looked more than a little peeved for being called a thing. "He forced you into doing his TARDIS homework, and his temporal physics work because he is so useless he couldn't do it himself. Why work with him, and why would you let him frame me?"

Magnus looked pained. "He has dirt on me," he replied, "and he ordered me to help him frame you. He wanted revenge on you, on the entire Deca for the humiliation he suffered at the Academy."

Theta wasn't moved by the apologetic tone in the other Time Lord's voice, though that talk about Anzor having dirt on him was plausible since Magnus had entered the political arena, and so did Anzor. But what infuriated the Time Lady was the idea that Anzor was the injured party when he'd been proven to be nothing more than a bullying thug. Something didn't feel right….. "You're lying, there's something you're not telling me. What is it?" she pressed.

Magnus sighed. "I told him I would help him if he allowed you to live," he admitted, "that I love you, and I didn't want you hurt. It took time but he eventually agreed, so long as we both left Gallifrey - together."

Theta was staggered, but then she opened her mind to his - in the micro-universe of the TARDIS, it was easy to do so - and she blinked, reading the deception in her mind. And she could hear his voice. "Play along, this is a trap for Anzor."

"Why has it taken you all this time to get to me when, an hour ago I was standing before the Council?" she asked, deciding to play along with him to see how it all worked out.

Anzor grinned maliciously at Magnus, enjoying the sight of the dark Time Lord's obvious discomfort. "Yes," he drawled out, "why did you not go to your 'beloved' earlier when you had the chance? You could have taken her away in your TARDIS long ago."

"What did I do to you, Magnus?" Theta whispered, then she realised what it was. "That's it, you wanted to get back at Koschei, didn't you? I always thought you were infatuated with Ushas, but then it turned to me. Why? You were jealous of us, and you wanted me since Ushas isn't the type to become infatuated with anyone, you decided to focus on me. Did you force Koschei to leave Gallifrey Magnus because he definitely left in a hurry?"

Magnus stayed silent, but the look of anger on his face showed she was spot on. Theta shook her head in disgust at him. "You wanted me to suffer? I've suffered, Magnus. I've suffered because you've helped the slime of Time Lord society. What made you and Anzor join forces?"

Magus glared at Anzor and then turned his attention back to her. "All right, I admit it, I did have an infatuation with Ushas. Back at the Academy, she had a personality that matched my own," Theta blinked at him, "but unfortunately, that meddlesome fool Mortimus interfered."

"Of course he did," Theta rolled her eyes, "Mortimus and Ushas grew up in the same province. They were close then."

"He didn't have to stop me from trying to interact with her-"

"You make her sound like a businesswoman you're trying to cosy up with," Theta replied before she shook her head to give the impression she didn't care anymore. She'd just broadcasted proof of the conspiracy to the Time Lords, but she wanted to know more. "There must be more to this that having me framed. What did you have in mind?"

Magnus smiled smugly, and then Theta closed her eyes. "Please tell me that you're- oh, Magnus!"

"That's it, go on," Magnus encouraged telepathically.

Anzor had been enjoying the fight. It wasn't often he had the opportunity to watch as the almighty Deca fell into conflict, especially since he'd been humiliated after he'd tortured Cheevah. Anzor had always been a spoilt, arrogant Time Lord, but he felt he deserved to be since he was the heir of an old and powerful family, but even he knew he had gone too far with encasing Cheevah, the only person at the Academy to ever stand up to him before Theta managed it herself, but Anzor didn't regret it. He didn't care if he had caused pain and suffering to others. He was a Time Lord, and he was planning to be greater than everyone save Rassilon and Omega themselves.

But Anzor was becoming concerned with the direction this conversation was going. He hadn't expected Magnus to show up in his TARDIS when Theta was here, he'd just adapted to it. What was he planning?

"What is it?" He asked between the two members of the Deca.

"This," Magnus replied, and he causally shot Anzor twice in the hearts and then again in the head. There would be no regeneration for him anymore. Theta looked down at the corpse. Theta was surprised that the state of temporal grace in Anzor's TARDIS was not on, but she figured Anzor had deliberately made that so when he wanted to use his Galvaniser.

She was snapped out of her thoughts when she heard Magus say, "Goodbye, Theta," and then disappear back inside his TARDIS. The sound of his TARDIS dematerialising overlapped with the sound of multiple TARDISes materialising in Anzor's ship, but she worked quickly by slamming her hand on the dematerialisation controls of Anzor's TARDIS and sent it into the vortex where the other TARDISes would be momentarily confused, and she instantly ran towards her TARDIS. She was surprised to see an envelope of old fashioned paper on the console when she rushed in, but she paid it no heed as she closed the main door and set the controls to a random destination and dematerialised.

* * *

When her ship was safe in the vortex, Theta didn't bother altering the coordinates. In fact she was running through her mind the list of things she would need to do to ensure the Time Lords left her alone; they might have exiled her and the order had stood even when she had 'proven her guilt' by running off from the Castellan like she had, but things had been thrown out of whack now since it was proven that Anzor hadn't been killed at the party, but truthfully the Time Lords weren't the most predictable race in the cosmos.

Theta looked around the console room with wonder in her eyes; she had waited her whole life for this moment, the time she'd be able to take a TARDIS and leave Gallifrey. Now everywhere was open to her, she only hoped to enjoy it without the meddling from the Time Lords. She could install a randomiser to the console, activate it a few times to throw the Time Lords off. It was illegal for a Time Lord to possess a TARDIS with a randomiser, but she was technically exiled, so what was the problem in going the extra mile by ensuring her safety?

Theta did a circuit around the console, sneering at the default mode the console room was currently locked in, but that was easy enough to alter when she landed her TARDIS, but when her eyes fell upon the envelope again she picked it up and opened it. The moment her eyes scanned the handwriting she instantly recognised Magnus's hand, but she read it anyway.

" _To Theta,_

 _I regret the way things turned out, even if you now have your wish of leaving Gallifrey in hand. You and I are now renegades like Drax, Ushas, and Koschei. In case you were unaware, I was telling Anzor a white lie about loving you; the stupid fool had wanted you to pay for humiliating him, yes, but the plan 'we' had imagined would be we'd land a TARDIS inside the one taking you to wherever, but I knew you'd find a way around the Castellan._

 _Anzor didn't._

 _That was his mistake._

 _In case you're wondering why I went along with him, let me tell you, in case I don't tell you personally, Anzor had dirt on me. You see, I've been conducting illegal research on TARDISes due for the breakers. I had wanted to improve the protyon units and make them more intelligent, and grant the TARDISes their full potential than what they are now._

 _Anzor found out about my work, and he threatened to inform the Time Lords of what I was doing. You know what the Council are like, they would frown about my work and imprison me, vaporise me at worst since the lines I was crossing were bordering on dangerous. I instantly pleaded with him not to, and he placed me under the galvaniser. Again. I'd forgotten the humiliating feeling of pain of utter hopelessness that wretched thing inflicts on you, believe me. Anyway, I wasn't ready to reveal my work to the Time Lords - I had hoped to be in a more powerful position politically, so then I would ease the Time Lords into it carefully. If not…..then I wouldn't have been exiled, but vaporised._

 _Anzor came up with the plan to hurt you, Theta. He could have done it all by himself, but he needed a member of the Deca to do it more effectively, and since he thought he had me at his mercy, I was the logical choice. But I'm the one that came up with the plan to frame you, and manipulate the Council into exiling you, and you have no idea how that made me feel. I made up a story to Anzor, told him that I would give him all my research if he allowed me to take you away from Gallifrey, but what I planned to do was to kill him and let you take a TARDIS of your own. It was an open secret with us in the Deca that you wanted to flee Gallifrey in a TARDIS, well I was prepared to give you that opportunity._

 _It doesn't matter how it works out now. I'm glad you are free now. Be safe._

 _I hope you enjoy your new life,_

 _Magnus."_

Theta put the letter down and thought to herself about everything that had happened. She was annoyed by Magnus's audacity, but she had to admit to herself he was right. She had wanted to leave Gallifrey. She had wanted to call herself a renegade. She was sick and tired of the Time Lords and their never ceasing need to become dull just to maintain the Web of Time. Now here she was, she had left Gallifrey in a Type 53 TARDIS, but she had not expected the mess her final days on Gallifrey had become. She hadn't expected Anzor to make such a massive mistake in expecting Magnus to suddenly go along with everything. While Magnus might have lied in Anzor's face, the idiot should have at least suspected he couldn't make Magnus do what he didn't want to.

Magnus was not the type of Time Lord to be coerced, and besides every member of the Deca had changed over the years since, so it was hardly their fault Anzor hadn't learnt from his mistakes. Exile. Theta's mind fixed on fact she was an exile, whether that was true or not since the Time Lords now knew she hadn't been the murderer, but she didn't care. The most important thing she would need to do was spend some time exploring the universe, visit planets and see what was out there for herself instead of relying on the secondhand knowledge shoved down her throat in the Academy.

And then she would be free to be be a pirate.

Picking the letters again, she focused on the last line. She had no idea what kind of life she would have as a pirate, but now she would find out for herself. After all she was young, she had all of her regenerations safe and sound, she had a brand new top of the line TARDIS, and she didn't really need to begin now.

Walking around the console, lost in thought, Theta wondered what she would do next. She didn't really want to begin her new career as a space pirate right away, she needed to know the lay of the galaxies she wanted to deal with first, she needed to acquire new skills, she needed to learn how to fight, how to pilot a spacecraft, how to do a myriad of other things that she literally had lifetimes to do now. Theta wondered for a moment what would happen back on Gallifrey, how her family would cope now she was gone, but then she decided it didn't matter to her anymore. Quences had planned to use her for his own ends, how he was willing to get rid of her under the pretence of simply wanting the best for her when all he'd wanted was to further his own agenda. It was pathetic, really. Then she thought about all of those rumours about her having a different father. Theta stood thinking about it for a few minutes before she decided she didn't really care anymore. If it was true that her mother had had a fling, then she might investigate, but for now all she wanted to do was enjoy her freedom. Besides, what was the rush?

The other members of the Deca were out there - Drax, Ushas, Koschei - she could find one of them somewhere, reunite with them…..but she placed it in the same category as the issue with her father. In any case how would she find them? They could be anywhere out there, and she was a long way from knowing her way about.

Theta looked around the console room for a second before she walked to the navigational controls, and started setting the console to random; she might have the opportunity to travel anywhere throughout time and space now she was away from Gallifrey, but the Time Lords had ways of tracking Time Lords who'd taken a TARDIS without a license or permission, and if they caught her…..Theta wasn't really sure what they'd do to her, but she didn't want to try and find out. Theta looked down at the console in wonder, and she couldn't help but imagine the kind of place she was going to see first. For now, she would just enjoy her freedom.

Theta looked around the TARDIS as he explored the depths - it was amazing how many rooms that to outsiders appeared useless, but were in fact either cleverly thought out disguises to hide the real thing were inside the ship. She passed the library and grinned at the splendour at the massive room - the library, no matter what configuration the ship was in would always be an enormous room with a ceiling 10 storeys high and full of books on numerous topics and subjects. Wandering around the TARDIS, but more than aware of where she was going since this was a Time Lord ship and she had an instinct of the interior dimension, Theta was just walking through the ship out of curiosity - she had never seen more than a few rooms inside a TARDIS during her training at the Academy, and she was interested in what this Type 53 had to offer. Finally she found herself in the Wardrobe room. Seeing all the clothes in the room made her smile, but she caught sight of her reflection in one of the mirrors and frowned at her unkempt appearance and started looking for a fresh set of clothes.

Some time later, after finding an outfit and having a wash Theta stood in front of the mirror again, gazing at her new appearance, trying her hardest not to smirk. One of the beauties of being a renegade Time Lord was you no longer had to bother wearing the long, voluminous robes. Now she was dressed in a pair of red trousers popped by a purple shirt and a black leather jacket. She cocked her head to one side as she studied her appearance before she grabbed a hair tie and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. When she was finished Theta shrugged. "I guess I'll get used to it," she muttered before she walked out of the wardrobe and headed for the console room, stepping towards her new life.

* * *

Next - The Naming.


	4. Chapter 4 The Naming

I hope you all enjoy this new chapter, and please tell me what you think of it.

The Naming.

The beacon was primitive as it hung in space, there was no doubt about that, it had been built up in different sections by the humans of Earth. The humans had long since known since they had constructed space stations and other installations in space that by building them in pieces and assembling them in space meant that it would cost fewer resources to put them up in the orbit of their planets. There were numerous advantages to this design method - for instance, in case of severe damage, a section that was compromised and leaking atmosphere could be jettisoned to reinforce the hull integrity.

But the beacon wasn't that large. It was just there as part of a galactic network of satellites designed to fulfil navigational functions for the numerous spaceships that buzzed around human space and to take part in important space charting missions. There were dozens of them, hundreds, dotted around the human sphere of space. Some of them were specially designed and built to help human space exploration missions. Designed to weather the strains of long periods of being left out here in space, and built by skilled human engineers at immense cost, the various pieces and components of this beacon and the others of its class had been carried out here by space freighter, where engineers put them together. The segments of the beacons were held by magnetic force and packed with computers and instruments to fulfil the navigational needs of Earth's empire.

Thousands of hours and thousands and thousands of credits had been spent to design and construct these beacons, but that meant nothing to Theta.

Materialising her TARDIS beyond the range of the beacon's scanners was easy enough, even if the sensors were so basic it was easy for the TARDIS to jam them - the Space Corps had begun a program of installing automatic scanners on their beacons to send distress signals if unscheduled ships approached in answer of the piracy raids that had cropped up over the last 20 years, raids begun by the criminal known as Maurice Caven, a dangerous criminal mastermind who had decided the best way to get rich was to break up the beacons to steal the metal they were constructed from. While she admired Caven's drive, Theta knew the humans would in the next decade or so stop using Argonite altogether, but at this point in time where humans hadn't yet discovered metals or alloys that were better suited than Argonite the metal was still used, and it was still as valuable as gold.

Gold. While the humans would lose track of Voga, the planet of gold in their wars against the Cybermen, they would discover other sources of the precious metal that would make the measly stock found on Earth superfluous, and for serious space pirates the metal, like silver and later platinum which would be found in greater sources in different solar systems, was useless. There were other treasures and means of getting rich, but really pirates got rich through all kinds of means.

Dressed in a space suit, Theta checked that her TARDIS's chameleon circuit was working and had disguised the ship as a space cruiser that, to the humans, was one of the latest models of ships and was fast. As the TARDIS smoothly slid closer to the beacon like a shark approaching a basking whale, she carefully programmed the TARDIS so it locked onto the airlock of the beacon. The smoothness of the precision spoke of a lot of time and practice rather than sheer luck, and it was because Theta had materialised her TARDIS in deep space in the forms of various starships and had carefully guided them around as best she could, wishing that the Time Lords had not moved on from space ships altogether and depended on TARDISes to travel through time and space.

Once the TARDIS was locked onto the airlock, Theta donned the rest of her suit and clipped on a jet pack and picked up the magnetic charges before she opened the door and floated out into the vacuum. The weightlessness of the vacuum didn't bother her as she carefully travelled around the beacon to plant the charges at carefully chosen weak points. Once she was finished, she went back to her TARDIS and came back with a number of small propulsion units and tiny transmitters that would send a signal for her to find.

When Theta was finished with the charges and the propulsion units and her business inside the beacon, she went back to her TARDIS. A few minutes later the TARDIS disguised as a space ship began pulling away slowly before it moved off and travelled beyond the range of the beacons scanners before she dematerialised, the computer instantly obeying the pre-set co-ordinates. The TARDIS didn't travel far, at least by the standards of Time Lords or any other species with interstellar travel, just ten light years where there was another beacon lying in space. It was virtually identical to the one she had just been too, and it was the scene of the same series of events.

Her TARDIS locked onto the beacon's airlock and then she left to plant more charges and clamped on to the sides the propulsion units and the micro transmitters while she worked inside the beacon as well. Once she was finished, she dematerialised the TARDIS and headed for another beacon where she repeated her moves.

Theta worked on another five beacons before she moved her TARDIS to a distant region of space to help her calculate the positions of the beacon segments before she triggered the charges. She spent the next few hours finding the pieces of the different beacons and materialising her TARDIS around them once she'd gotten a decent fix on their positions.

* * *

Not far away a massive space-ship in the shape of a massive T with the striking eagle insignia of the Space Corps. The V class cruiser had been in service for years now, with the design receiving little in the way of adjustment but its internal workings had been redesigned. On the enormous flight deck General Warne glowered at the screen.

Agonite pirates, he mused darkly, the bane of my existence, and yet without them I probably wouldn't have a career. Warne had spent most of his career dealing with all kinds of threats like the numerous little wars that occasionally broke out but piracy was something that wouldn't go away.

Warne had been one of the instrumental people who'd brought down the gang of pirates led by Maurice Caven, who'd been out for revenge against Milo Clancey, although it had very nearly resulted in the total destruction of the Argnonite mines on Ta. But while their leader had been killed, the space pirates Caven had led had inspired others who were more serious about making money rather than going out for revenge. It was so easy for them to operate - just grab a ship, preferably a fast one, find a small crew who were experts and trained astronauts who were good at space walking and also unscrupulous enough to blow the beacons to bits to be melted down and sold off to make hard cash.

Warne had spent a good portion of his career locating and putting gangs like that away. It never ceased to amaze him just how many people were willing to go down that route.

Now it was happening again.

"Communications, send a message to other cruisers to investigate beacons in their patrol regions. Helm, plot a course to take us to the sites of the beacons that have just been destroyed," Warne said accepting the inevitable.

The V ship arrived at one of the nearer sites of one of the destroyed beacons, and apart from the basic framework the segments that contained the vital computer instruments that handled navigation were long gone. Warne groaned when he saw it, already drafting a report that would not be well received by his superiors.

While the general was issuing his orders to scan the region so then they could move on to the next and track the beacon segments so they could be reassembled and find a lead on the pirates themselves, the crew were too busy to notice the massive asteroid passing through the region.

* * *

The massive sleek form of the V ship filled the scanner screen, but while this ship would terrify an ordinary space pirate it meant nothing to Theta who just looked at it with Time Lady detachment. They had no way of knowing that her TARDIS was nearby, they didn't even know of her ship's ability to take on different forms, and they had no idea the Argonite they were looking for was only a handful of miles away from their ship and drifting slowly away. Theta had no real idea why she had decided to bring her TARDIS so close to the space corps ship, and decided it was simply so she could gloat without them knowing about it.

Leaving the console room, she headed down to the room in the TARDIS that she had prepared for the melting down of the Argonite and its storage. The room had needed careful expanding of the interior dimension, but it was worth it with the number of segments in the room. Towering over her like pieces of fruit that had been chopped up and enlarged, the beacon segments were arranged the way she'd found them, which was why the room was so big now. When she had detonated those charges, the beacons had still been bound in magnetic force to keep them together while the propulsion units had moved them to a pre-arranged location so she could locate them. There was four gigantic induction furnaces in the room with her so she could melt down the segments and collect the Argonite.

Melting down the segments to get to the precious metal would take a long time, but even if she broke down a few of the segments from just one of the beacons she'd still make a lot of cash. After donning heavy gloves and putting on an insulated apron, Theta switched on one of the furnaces which used the power of her TARDIS to work. After stripping the interior of the segment out of all traces of Argonite, she began working on the walls of the segment and making a nice little pile. It took the Time Lady over two hours to break up more than 3 of the segments and put the pieces into the furnace, but the end result were a number of bars of refined Argonite. It would be tricky to sell since the Space Corps kept an eye out on sales of the metal, but even if she ended up having to sell the metal to them, they wouldn't really bat an eyelid since Argonite was expensive to find and then mine, not to mention refine and process. It would be the ultimate joke in Theta's mind, the Space Corps would be searching for the Argnonite she'd just stolen and they would still accept the stuff if she sold it to them.

Theta worked for hours to get enough of the metal of the segments before deciding it was worth it. The metal bricks themselves were placed into the baskets of a small cart she'd prepared for the job, and she drove them out of the room. She could always come back for the others later.

* * *

Theta studied the Argonite supplier, knowing he was her man for the job. She had read his mind; he was the typical middle man between the pirate and the companies that constructed space ships. Argonite was becoming so scarce nowadays the companies no longer cared where they got it from, and it was hardly the pirates' fault. Argonite was a metal between rare and highly common in the galaxy, and the humans had practically discovered all but the most distant mines out there. Ta was one of them, and it was practically worked out now because of the steady demands to build space-craft capable of travelling further and longer than previous generations. Theta had chosen this point in time because of that factor - she wanted anonymity rather than people noticing her giving out large amounts of Argonite to companies and other organisations that needed the stuff.

The supplier was studying the bricks of Argonite closely, his face slack with shock since he had never encountered a haul like this in his entire life.

"Where did you get all of this?" he asked, surprised by the amount of Argonite he was seeing.

Theta was becoming tempted to hypnotise this human and be done with it. The last thing she wanted were too many questions. "I found the Argonite, it was from a drifting ship," she said, deciding to go for it and focused her hypnotic powers on the man.

"You….f ound the Argonite," the man repeated, "it was from….drifting…ship."

Theta nodded. "Yes, it was from a drifting ship," she intoned, not breaking the spell until it was fully placed in the human's mind. Once she was positive the human wasn't going to ask any questions or his mind would break through the spell - contrary to other Time Lords, she knew that the mind was a powerful thing, especially in races that the Time Lords would instantly dismiss as inherently primitive - she said briskly, "Now, do we have a deal or not?"

The human smiled, unaware that his mind had been manipulated. "Yeah," he said, reaching into his pocket and giving her a few credit cards. Theta took them and scanned them."Why is there hardly any money on these cards?"she asked.

"Argonite shortages, the companies are buying tons of the stuff to make up for discrepancies in the shipments due to piracy and smuggling," the dealer sent her a look, but he carried on, "so they pay people like me a pittance. There's nothing I can do about it, but while the companies were showing themselves to be legal, they're willing to take whatever they can find, but they're still spending millions finding more legal sources."

Theta nodded, accepting the truth. It was possible the human was lying, of course, but it didn't really matter.

Three days later, Theta was standing in the middle of a bank. There were robot tellers and assistants working with the numerous humans that worked here. Everything in the bank was ultra modern - for this century at least, and it was computerised. Although she had little interest in the bank she looked around again for the ninth time as she waited for the robot teller in front of her to finish setting up her bank account.

The bank assistant robot looked up. "Miss Smith, your bank account is now online, and your present balance is at 51, 600 credits," the robot said in an artificially pleasant voice. "Here you have your credit card, and your online details." In its plastic hand was a small packet.

Theta was handed a plastic pack which contained the card and other banking details. "Thank you," she said as she took the packet. She left after another minute of having to listen to the robot talk about other offers, but she quickly lost her patience and she left the bank quickly.

As she left the bank she had time to think about the recent two months. Theta had melted down enough of the beacons she had materialised the TARDIS around to make a small fortune, and she had carefully put the money she had collected in different banks. As she walked down the street, she was thankful because that last bank was the last one on the list, but there was still so much for her to do.

Theta smiled as she approached the TARDIS, now in the shape of a car thanks to the chameleon circuit. After she unlocked the door and she walked in, she headed for the console and studied the computer.

The Time Lady stood by the computer for a few minutes before she nodded and she started setting the controls before she activated the drive units and her TARDIS left the planet.

* * *

Solo yawned loudly as she checked the radar screens as the cargo ship Falcon travelled at sub-light speeds past the outer markers of the 8th system before they could enter FTL. The rest of the crew were in their rest shift, and Solo, much to her own disgust, had been relegated to bridge work while the others drank and cheered at the prospect of another bonus. Money in the bank. The only problem was this ship was so fucking new that most of the systems were automated, and not for the first time Solo cursed the company she was with. She missed the old ships because then she knew all the systems were being manned.

But it was happening everywhere, mechanisation and automation. The good news was while the computers were good, they still weren't designed or constructed to be versatile enough to think for themselves, so humans were still needed to operate them.

The FTL system would be automatic with her direct observation - in space, by law, it was recommended and demanded that freighter crews remained on duty throughout but no one really cared. Solo knew that her shipmates would be back on the bridge soon, but she would have to be on duty until then.

"SECURITY ALERT. HOLD NUMBER 5 BREACHED. HOLD NUMBER 5 BREACHED."

Startled by the alarm, Solo sat up straight and checked the readouts and the computer, before wondering to herself if the security system was on the blink. That idea died quickly in her mind when she saw the picture from the CCTV feed.

"Security, bridge here - Lieutenant Solo reporting, the suspect is a woman wearing a black coat with brown hair in a ponytail. She does not appear to be armed, but she is stealing the cargo." Solo zoomed in until the woman's face filled the screen and she recorded it for the wanted posters that would appear if the security detachment failed to capture the woman.

Finally the doors to the cargo hold opened and 6 crew members that she knew were on security duty stormed into the hold, carrying heavy duty blasters.

Theta cursed as she jogged away from the security detachment, zig-zagging away from them as they fired their weapons, cursing herself for not having a blaster of her own. It might be silly, but ever since that mess on Gallifrey where she'd had to evade the Castellan and the rest of the guards, she hadn't wanted to pick up another gun as long as she lived, but now she was literally running for her life, trying desperately to avoid being hit while she carried some of this freighter's cargo in the dimensionally transcendental backpack she'd prepared for this.

She had all 12 of her allotted regenerations, giving her 13 lives in total, but she didn't want to waste them because she was reckless enough to get shot, but judging from the trigger happy nature of the guards on this freighter, Theta realised she might have to rethink her stance about carrying guns.

It had gone so well, as well; the heist had been so straight forward and she had no trouble stealing small amounts of the cargo and put it all in her backpack, and then she had accidentally triggered an alarm, but she wasn't worried because she had been heading back to the TARDIS by the time the guards came in. She had the head start but the guards knew the hold well, they should because this was their ship, and they were gaining on her all the time.

"Stop! There's no-where to run!" One of the guards shouted behind her.

Theta laughed. Oh, they had no idea… Finally she came across the TARDIS in its basic and uncamouflaged form; the hold was packed full of crates and barrels and while she knew the TARDIS wouldn't cloak itself in the form of something similar she hadn't wanted to take the chance. Beaming in relief and skidding to a stop Theta reached into her pocket and took out her key and slapped it on the sensor plate so she could get inside. Theta was halfway through the door when a guard who had somehow gotten ahead of the main group shouted, "FREEZE!"

Theta froze, and she studied the human guard and saw that her hand was trembling around the gun. She was nervous and Theta didn't need to look into the woman's mind to see that, and she knew that if she made a single mistake with how she handled this one then she could very well be shot at, and there was a chance that she'd be hit by a stray bullet.

It was the guard who broke the silence. "Get out of that…. thing," she ordered.

Theta smiled gently at the guard, hoping that the calm attitude would soothe the woman's nerves, though she wouldn't be surprised if that set her off. "No, I won't," she replied and quickly leapt into the TARDIS and rushed to the console and dematerialised while setting the controls.

* * *

Once the TARDIS was safe within the Time Vortex, Theta walked over to the rucksack and picked it up and took it over to the small table and chair she'd placed in the console room. There was a fortune within the bag, she knew. Most of the items in the bag were new produces made on the planet the ship had left. Theta had spent 4 hours on the ship, going through all of the things she had recently stolen from a number of different ships over the last week ever since she'd taken the last of the Argonite for selling and collecting the money. What was in the bag might arouse some interest, of course but she was sure she could sell the contents, but she would need to be careful in the future.

Theta looked at the bag thoughtfully before looking around the console room of her TARDIS and came to a decision. She had been working for a short time, carrying out little raids on different ships not to mention those navigational beacons, and she believed that she was ready. She had been waiting for this moment for a long time now.

"I am the Pirate," she said, testing it out and then nodded her head, liking the name. It had a nice ring to it and she hoped that she lived up to what the name represented. Walking over to the console, the newly named Pirate started setting the controls for the next target.

"I've got work to do," the Pirate said to herself.

* * *

Chapter notes.

Milo Clancey, Maurice Caven, and Warne are characters from the second Doctor story The Space Pirates. Milo Clancey was an old space prospector who was the enemy of Maurice Caven, a murderous criminal who was later handed over to the authorities by Clancey, but later escaped and formed a gang of pirates and used them to get revenge on Clancey, even hinting he was behind the pirate operation and the Space Corps believed it as well before the Doctor cleared it up.

I don't think I need to say a word about Solo. Yeah, I was inspired by Han Solo, but this Solo isn't a smuggler. I've thought about making one of The Pirate's future incarnations a smuggler, but what do you think?

I am really looking forwards to writing the future chapters of this story. Please give me ideas and feedback to help give me a direction - I have ideas, but I am welcome to hearing your opinions.


	5. Chapter 5 Back to the Spanish Main

Happy Christmas. This is part of my farewell to Peter Capaldi, who will be replaced by Jodie Whittaker on Christmas Day. I hope she's a brilliant Doctor, who will inspire more stories for this website.

I don't own Doctor Who.

Please enjoy my story, and please leave feedback.

* * *

Back to the Spanish Main….. in a submarine

The Pirate had never considered herself to be a Designer, but when she had gotten the basics right she found it pathetically easy. It was ironic, really - designing time had been banned by her race for a long time. The Pirate had never pictured herself as the type to Design time before, though she knew that her unique knowledge of the workings of time and time travel made it easier than it would've done with a human or any other species, who would have needed to possess a computer rigorous enough to cope with the complicated temporal calculations.

Pfft, temporal calculations like that were for wimps. Well, computerised work was pathetic, but for her, it was as easy to breathe.

Designers were basically time travellers who were hired by wealthy clients - corporations or individuals who wanted to change a specific event or moment of the past in their favour. The Time Lords had banned temporal designing several centuries ago because they were afraid of the number of potential alternative timelines, and the Pirate understood and even sympathised with their problem. The Time Lords were tolerant of temporal experimentation, but they didn't actively encourage it. The dangers of inexperienced or really stupid time travellers meddling with history was another thing that antagonised them because they had to clean up the mess, but if you were really careful, had access to a well designed and developed time machine then you could manipulate the past without causing serious damage.

For her current plans, the Pirate had realised she had needed to be very careful and cautious, though truthfully after she had begun manipulating the past by programming specific people then she realised it was easy when you got the hang of it. The trick of Designing time wasn't to actively meddle with events, get in the way of a car, or blow up something important - only time meddlers did that. Designers programmed people to carry out specific instructions at a certain time and to make sure they were in the right place when that happened.

She had been away from Gallifrey for over two hundred years now, and she had already accrued a big reputation in several time frames, always under different names - the Pirate sometimes wondered whether or not she should have chosen a different name for a title or maybe just a different name altogether, but if she really wanted to she could change her name to something other than a title - but she wanted to go further.

The Time Lady was bored of prowling the future eras. Now she wanted to slip back into the past, and it hadn't been until she'd studied the TARDIS databanks and studied human history that she discovered the perfect eras. Human history was so full of war, chaos, and piracy that she was pressed for a choice, but she found the Spanish Main to be perfect.

But she had no intention of using the primitive sailing ships of the era. Sure, it wouldn't be too difficult to capture one and refit it to carry torpedoes, or convert the cannons to become rifled instead of being smooth-bore weapons capable of firing explosive or incendiary shells, or feature an atomic power plant and engine. But it would take too long and she would be working on her own - she was too much of a loner to really want to work with everyone, and besides working with advanced technology was difficult to anyone without the skills to work with them - the Pirate knew how ingenious and inventive humans were, she knew that from experience, but she knew that it would be way beyond their comprehension if she showed them nuclear technology.

She could've disguised her TARDIS as a ship easily enough, but the problem was the TARDIS couldn't duplicate weapons and she would need them in order to take on naval ships or indeed other pirates. Sure, she could also program the chameleon circuit into disguising her ship to resemble some kind of speed boat, but that was too anachronistic.

Further study of human history had given her the perfect answer. A submarine. At first the Pirate had considered merely taking her TARDIS through time to the Spanish Main or even the Indian ocean or any other time frame and disguise her ship as a submarine and carry out her plans there, but as she studied human history a little further along she learnt about the First and Second World Wars - the German U-Boats and the American Gato class submarines, and the X-Craft of the British Navy that sank the Tirpitz.

A disguise for the TARDIS was all well and good, but she wanted a submarine that could actually sink a ship from a distance. If she used her TARDIS then she would need to go very close to a ship, and plant a bomb on them, and while she could knock off a few bombs she didn't want to go down that route. For a start, how could she control her TARDIS to move from one ship to another? She would either need to have a mechanism in the conning tower of the disguise to control the ship's steering, but how would she even know it was there in the first place? And more importantly, how could she be sure she had the perfect number of bombs to make a difference? She didn't want to go down into the TARDIS and come out carrying a fresh set of bombs all the time. It was just not practical.

The only problem was choosing a submarine from a moderately advanced era of human history that could be used. She discounted the U-Boats and the Gato-class American submarines from World War 2; they were diesel powered and didn't have a very high speed underwater. The midget submarines from the same era were also discounted for much the same reasons, though she needed space to stow her TARDIS away. Okay, so she needed a submarine that was nuclear powered, armed with torpedoes, and could be crewed by a single person.

The early and middle 21st century was the perfect place to look, but the problem there was the submarines were too large and required large crews to run them efficiently. She didn't want that - she wanted a submarine that was small and manageable, and yet capable of sinking a large number of ships at a time and had a highly efficient and powerful power plant.

There was only one tiny problem - there weren't any.

The Pirate was so frustrated that she almost gave up before she drowned out some of her sorrows in a bar - the mild anti-intoxicant she regularly took whenever she drank copious amounts of booze was an advantage, but after she had almost been raped once upon a time, the last thing she wanted was to make another stupid mistake - and she overheard a couple of people that she could tell were time travellers talk about a contract to change a business deal, and how ridiculous it was even if it was a good job, and that was when it hit her to Design time.

Sure, the Pirate knew she could do it - and it wasn't as if she were on good terms with the Time Lords anyway, but she didn't want to push the limits. If they caught her meddling with time, they wouldn't exile her, she would probably be vaporised. So, the Pirate went back to the 21st century, and she began laying the foundations of her game plan. She chose the mid C21st because that was when the humans had begun developing fusion power reactors, and that meant they could downscale the size of anything whereas before anything holding a nuclear reactor was massive. She had a blueprint to work with there.

The Pirate had spent a great deal of time programming and meticulously Designing the pasts of several people - naval engineers, politicians, scientists and naval admirals to begin the work - the engineers and scientists would begin working on miniaturising the technology down to a fine degree, and she had also programmed several events of the time - Earth at that point was already volatile, so it was doubtful anyone would really notice anything different. It took a great deal of time, but the Pirate was pleased by the outcome.

The naval base the TARDIS was currently scanning featured highly advanced sensors and security systems that would have made it difficult to break in with conventional means, but to the Pirate it was pathetically easy for the TARDIS to materialise around one of the submarines that was inside the pen. The base was arranged in a hexagonal shape with a massive wall surrounding the base and sheltering the patrol boats and the submarines there from the roughness of the sea in bad weather, and there was a pen where the submarines were held, and there were a number of workshops and fuel cell stores. The Pirate's hands flew over the console and materialised around one of the submarines and dematerialised again, and set the controls to also materialise around a large number of torpedoes. She knew that her actions would cause a lot of confusion and lead to a major investigation, but she didn't care.

Next stop, the Spanish main.

* * *

The submarine the Pirate had stolen from the C21st was fairly long, with fins in the bow and stern with a large conning tower jutting from the middle, and right behind it was another smaller tower section where the airlock was featured, and directly in front of the conning tower was the torpedo launcher. All in all, the Pirate was very pleased and impressed with the success of her Design. All she had done was program a few people into conceiving a small submarine vessel that was powerful and strong enough to stay underwater for long periods and provide a good base to spy and launch saboteurs during peacetime while in wartime it would be small enough to menace the enemy.

The enemy being the treasure ships sent back to Spain.

As soon as the TARDIS arrived at her destination and ejected the submarine into the Atlantic ocean, and she guided the ship onto the submarine in a corner of the control room. The cabin of the submarine was cramped, with a large horseshoe-shaped console covered with controls that controlled the ballast tanks, the engines, and the weapons with a wheel in front of a chair. There were smaller control panels around the room, but the Pirate didn't pay them much attention. The controls of the submarine were overcomplicated, typical of human thinking, but to the Pirate, it wasn't a problem. Sitting down at the console, the Pirate's hands flew over the console like a pianist playing a concerto.

The submarine had been sitting on the surface of the sea, a gleaming metal predator way out of its time period. If anyone saw the vessel on the surface, they would stop and stare, and the more superstitiously minded would consider the submarine to be a monster, some kind of sea leviathan that had risen to the surface to devour all, rather than what it was in reality.

Then, very slowly, the submarine began to move through the water, leaving faint traces of white foam in its wake before great founts of steam were blasted out of its sides as its ballast tanks began to fill with water, and it slowly began to sink down. Eventually, the deck was completely under the water and then finally the conning tower and the top airlock was under the sea, leaving only the periscope. Eventually, that disappeared as well, leaving a completely empty sea.

"40 feet, I think," the Pirate murmured to herself as she adjusted the controls, and pushed the wheel forwards to control the hydroplanes, flicking on the sonar scanners before levelling off, and adjusting the speed to exceed 30 knots, while activating the hydrophone arrays to detect any surface vessel. Powered by its fusion power plant which sucked water through its forward ram scoops, and pushed through to the turbines and propelled the submarine at great speeds, the vessel crossed many miles under the surface of the Atlantic, and it gave the Pirate some experience with handling the vessel.

She had learnt how to pilot an ordinary spaceship, and she had even gotten lessons flying a plane in the late C20th. She had a few driving licenses for various types of cars in different time zones, and she had learnt how to manage a boat, so she wasn't particularly worried about learning how to pilot a submarine. But she wanted to learn how to handle the ship. In a way, it was kind of similar to how she had learnt how to manage her TARDIS, though truthfully both were pathetically easy.

* * *

For three standard Earth days, the Pirate experimented with the submarine. She became proficient at crash diving and sending the nose of the submarine to the bottom, and she began practicing with the torpedo controls though she didn't fire them because she didn't want to waste them. But she didn't waste time either.

Using the data collected by the Time Lords and placed so casually but helpfully in the databanks of every TARDIS, the Pirate was able to find the best routes in the Atlantic between the Caribbean and Europe. With the submarine and the TARDIS, she travelled along the routes, spotting various ships along the way, sometimes moving in groups to avoid the pirate ships already out there, or sometimes alone.

Very brave of them since they were at risk, but she didn't care if they had a death wish or if they just wanted to make a big profit they were willing to tangle bait in front of pirates. It amused the Pirate a little bit, because she was there, under the surface, who was able to keep up with them with more powerful engines, but she left them alone for now while she became used to the route, and besides she would have plenty of time to properly plunder the ships later on, so it didn't make any difference to her.

The Pirate also stalked different pirate ships that routinely tracked down and attacked the Spanish treasure ships - it amazed her they could even do that, considering how primitive human technology was at this current time, but they were doing much as she was, which was to stay close to the treasure routes ferrying gold and silver from the Spanish main to the ports in Spain, and just patrol it in wait until they came across any treasure ship unlucky enough to be out there at the time. As she patrolled the routes from the Spanish Main to Europe, the Pirate witnessed these attacks firsthand, but she discounted the pirate ships as important - if she came across them, then they too would become fair game, it was as simple as that.

When she had left Gallifrey, she had dealt with a few space pirates in her time, and she had been forced to see a few of them as her enemies, but this time she had the advantage - they couldn't do anything to her here.

Sticking close to one of the ports where treasure ships were constantly being loaded up with gold and silver for shipment to Europe had turned out to be one of her best ideas, because the Pirate soon decided she was ready. She had visited the port town and discovered that a small number of ships would be leaving, bound for Spain, carrying tons of silver and gold in their holds, in just a few days.

The Pirate stayed pretty close to the port in the submarine, using the periscope to keep watch on them. In a century where submarines were virtually unknown, she didn't really care if anyone saw the periscope. The top of the instrument wasn't that large and besides if anyone saw it, who cared?

Even if they saw it on the surface, it wouldn't be there for long. The Pirate only took intermittent views of the surface to reassure herself that the treasure ships were there, and besides even if any of the humans in the harbour saw the top of the periscope, what would they do? It wouldn't be as though they knew what it was.

The Pirate spied on the ships for hours when she looked through the periscope and saw that her patience was finally being paid off. The sails were finally being set, and the anchors were lifted, the treasure ships finally moved out of the harbour. Guiding the submarine directly underneath the ships as they left the harbour, the Pirate kept the vessels' speed fairly low as she lurked under the keels of her prey. Once in the open ocean and no longer confined to the cramped space of the harbour, the submarine was moved to flank the ships. The Pirate followed them out, and using the sensors built into the periscope she prepared to strike at the fleet when they were both at least seven miles out into sea. She prepared her submarine - she loaded the torpedoes into the launcher, and programmed the computer and guidance system built into each missile to hit the sides in each ship so then their holds would flood quickly without any chance of saving the cargo.

She put on her wetsuit and prepared the airlock, and her diving equipment, making sure to include some spare air tanks in case she used up her supply too fast - Time Lords didn't need as much oxygen as humans did, but she didn't want anything to go wrong. She put both sets of tanks in the airlock, and returned to the control room, and viewed the treasure ships through the periscope.

It was still daylight, and the ships were still moving in formation. Using the underwater scanners, the Pirate continued inputting the instructions into the torpedo guidance computer. She didn't plan to completely destroy the small fleet - she only planned to sink all but a few of them, and even then they would probably return to the port town, surprised with slightly battered survivors who'd expected to be well on their way to Europe, but the Pirate didn't care about any of that.

The Pirate pressed the control sequence that would trigger the programme to sink the treasure ships, and she watched through the periscope as it started. She heard a phutt sound as the launchers fired their torpedoes, and a few minutes later the small missiles exploded against the hulls of two of the treasure ships, sending up plumes of water and spray into the air. The launchers fired more torpedoes at the treasure ships, and more were hit until finally only three of them were left.

Through the periscope she could see the three treasure ships turn to pick up survivors. She watched the vision for a few minutes, not feeling anything for the mariners she had killed since she had done this before. She had destroyed dozens of ships just to get something she wanted. Part of her wanted to just looking through the periscope, but she didn't because she wanted to see what the humans did. To her relief none of the ships seemed prepared or willing to carry on with their voyage, instead they used their common sense and returned to the harbour. The Pirate knew without a shadow of a doubt they would be the recipients of some very deep and probing questions, questions that none of them could answer.

When she saw them begin to head for the port, she guided the submarine down slowly towards the ships resting on the bottom of the sea, taking the submarine down at a graceful angle. The sight of them resting on the bottom of the sea filled her with a little bit of pleasure since she knew the plan had worked.

Entering the airlock as soon as the submarine landed with a gentle bump on the seabed, the Pirate breathed in the air from the tanks gently as the water filled the room, equalising the pressure to match the sea outside. When the chamber was flooded, the Pirate opened the hatch and left the submarine, bubbles from her tri mix tanks of oxygen, nitrogen and helium cascading out as she swam out of the submarine. As she swam out of her submarine, headed straight towards one of the sunken ships, she was surprised by how far away she had landed her ship from the wrecks. There were shoals of fish everywhere, their silvery scales glinting even this far down, and there were tall strands of seaweed that stretched upwards, swaying gently in the current.

The Pirate paid the minutest amount of attention to the natural wonders of the sea before she swam gently towards the wreck, though she paid close watch for any sign of predators lurking about. She was armed with an underwater carbine which fired bullets, taken from the 21st century along with the submarine - in fact, it was a piece of the submarine's equipment, but she didn't want to use it unless she needed to. The newly sunken ship's hull had been split open by the impact of the torpedo, and there were chests of gold and silver scattered over the seabed. The Pirate went over the wreck of the first ship carefully, and just as carefully she went over the wreck while avoiding pieces of debris as she gathered the chests and put them outside the hull.

The Time Lady didn't have any intention of swimming backwards and forwards to the wrecks. That would take too much time, far too much for even a Time Lord to tolerate. She was just going to empty them out and then take them back to the submarine. It was going to be a long job, but she had plenty of time. It took her an hour to remove the treasure from just one ship, thankful that the work and labour on the surface which had been done by hundreds of slaves was easy down here because the water made everything virtually weightless. A massive pile chests was on the seafloor from just one ship, and when she was finished she simply moved on to another ship. It took the Pirate a couple of hours to plunder just three ships, and when she was finally finished, she started taking them back to the submarine.

She had a few loading problems there because the airlock of the submarine was not that big, and she was becoming tempted to simply materialise the TARDIS around the piles to save her the trouble of wrestling the chests in through the outer hatch of the submarine and out through the narrow inner door. It was awkward, and more than once she had been forced to remove the gold and silver for ease of movement, but she had problems picking up everything and putting it somewhere in the TARDIS.

After an hour of moving the treasure out through the inner door of the airlock chamber once she had finished emptying it for the last time, the Pirate leaned against a bulkhead and sighed. She was exhausted, but she knew she would have to go back out there. She sniffed the air, getting a sense of the local time and knew it was getting late. Reaching a decision the Pirate went back to the control room and walked to the console. Her hands moved over the controls and she guided the submarine to the centre of the wrecks. When the ship settled down on the seafloor again she realised she didn't want to keep going in and out of the submarine, spending long periods out there. An idea came to mind. The Pirate walked into her TARDIS and went to the console, and began to power the ship up. She made some careful adjustments to the control console before she left the ship. A few minutes later the Pirate was once again attacking the wrecks, but instead of just making separate piles outside the ships, she took all of the chests from all of them and put them into one massive pile.

When the Time Lady was sure she had gathered more than enough, she swam back to the submarine and reentered the airlock. Once all the water was evacuated, she rushed to her TARDIS and began setting the controls and triggering the dematerialisation sequence. She could have used her TARDIS anytime of her choice, but the Pirate didn't want to use her time ship too often for something so menial. Once the gold was stored in the TARDIS, she guided her ship back to the submarine. It was getting late. In the morning, she would go on another hunt.

For the next month, the Pirate and her submarine were the terror of the sea in the Spanish Main though she wasn't stupid enough to be sighted. But she quickly realised she had made a mistake in letting the sailors live when she visited one of the port towns in the Caribbean. The sailors there were mystified by the disappearances of several ships while eyewitness account didn't tell anybody anything. While she moved from town to town to listen to one these little chats, the Pirate was annoyed when she heard them talk about seeing something in the water sticking out.

While she wasn't too bothered by the sight of the periscope being seen by the sailors of the various ships she sank, the Pirate was annoyed when she heard there had been enough sightings for a few ships to be sent out to sea to investigate, but in an age before anti-submarine warfare was invented she wasn't bothered. No, what really bothered her was it was even happening.

When she returned to her TARDIS and returned it to her submarine, the Pirate sat in the captain's chair on the confined bridge of the ship and brooded over what she should do now. She had learnt that it was not a good idea to give up, even if she had made good on plundering different ships in the Spanish Main, but she would have to change her approach. She had made the mistake of thinking it would not really matter if her periscope was seen since it wasn't like any one would know what it was, and now she had a warship looking for her.

The Pirate decided to leave all warships alone, though she would need to pick her targets more carefully from now on, but she didn't really care about that. It was tempting for her to just simply hunt them down and sink them, but she avoided them. None of the crews on those ships or the authorities in this part of the world knew what they were hunting, and even if they did their technology was too primitive for them to be a credible threat to her submarine.

* * *

"C'mon, you heathen bastards! Get those trunks stowed onboard the ships," one of the overseers shouted at the black slaves moving the trunks onboard the ships, and his order was repeated by a number of his assistants who cruelly whipped the black slaves into hurrying up. But the overseer knew they were working as fast as they could, but he earned his pay by being cruel to these poor buggers.

It was hard for him not to feel sorry for them, but he knew he had to be cruel to get them to work faster, knowing if they didn't things would be bad for them.

The overseer was not the only one feeling sorry for the slaves. The Pirate had seen many types of slavery during her travels through time and space, but she knew there was little she could do for them. Even if she interfered and saved these slaves, it would do no good - they would either be captured or killed if she got them free. She had learnt that lesson before when she had travelled to Ga IV, in the year 3456, and the sight of those 60 slaves she had tried to save had been imprinted on her memory. Besides, in a few centuries black slavery would be banned, and the American Civil rights movement was fixed into human history, and into the Web of Time. There was nothing she could do.

The Pirate had had a busy morning checking over the treasure fleet, hating her restrictive dress which was like an umbrella encircling around her waist that made it hard for the Time Lady to move, and she hated the design of her clothes in contrast to the comfortable outfits she normally wore, but she tolerated it since she was making her living as a pirate.

Looking on as the slaves unloaded the chests and put them onboard the treasure fleet reminded the Pirate of an army of ants stripping a forest to nothingness. She knew this fleet would be leaving in the morning, knew that the supplies the crew would need to endure the voyage had already been put onboard. There were six ships of this fleet, and she would follow them soon. Heading back to a carriage that had been left abandoned, the Pirate went inside it. If anyone had paid any attention to the carriage which they hadn't, they would have been surprised that the carriage was no longer there.

Moving forwards through time, the Pirate used her TARDIS's poly directrix lenses to keep track of the ships from far above them, and then she directed her TARDIS to materialise inside her submarine which was suspended beneath the surface at a depth of 40 feet. Once inside she reactivated the ship and waited for the treasure fleet to come closer. It was very deep water around here. When she sank the ships, they would be so far under the surface that it would take years for them to be discovered.

The Pirate finished programming the torpedo guidance mechanism and she just waited. She'd spent quite a bit of time learning her way around this computer, and she had become better at it. Extending the periscope without any sense of worry, the Pirate saw the treasure fleet on the horizon. Automatically the periscope compensated for the distance with its digital focuser, with the computer built into the system giving an accurate estimate of the distance. The fleet were only 2 miles away and they would be close soon. The Pirate could have crossed the distance easily, but she didn't want to move at all since she had chosen this spot for them to sink. As soon as the underwater sensors detected the presence of the large ships on the surface, she retracted the periscope and waited. When they were close enough the torpedo firing computer instantly fired the torpedoes at the ships and circled the hulls and then detonated. She had enhanced the torpedoes so then they would explode, and sink and kill all of the crews. No witnesses.

Ignoring the coldness, the Pirate looked through the periscope. Where there was once pristine sea with the ships heading back to Europe with gleaming white sails, there were now pieces of burnt wood everywhere. The ships themselves were either on fire and sinking, or they were already sinking with their burnt masts and sails still sticking out of the water.

The Pirate wasn't sure if there were survivors, but she felt guilty about what she had done. Pushing that aside since she would have plenty of time, later on, to reflect on what she had just done, the Time Lady guided the submarine down to the bottom, tilting the forward hydroplanes and directing the pumpjets downwards at a slow, gentle speed and rested her ship on the bottom of the sea before heading for the airlock to check her equipment and the airlock while she waited for the ships to finally sink to the bottom. Once more entering the airlock, the Pirate stood in the middle of the room as the water poured into the chamber, letting the pressure equalise like she had let it do a hundred times now, breathing gently from her air tanks and then left the submarine and began swimming slowly towards the sunken ships. She winced under her mask at the slight increase of pressure, but it was manageable for the SCUBA equipment she was wearing at the moment.

As she swam towards the wreck, she saw the burnt and grisly remains of a few of the human crew members, the smell of the burnt and bloody flesh had already begun to attract the local predators, but as long as they left her alone the Pirate didn't care about what they did, though she had to hold down the bile at the sight of those burnt out humans. One of their faces was still reasonably intact and untouched and the eyes seemed to glare sightlessly into the Time Lady's own eyes. It took all of her will just to look away and continue with her task of plundering the ships.

The impact of the torpedoes had practically ripped the wooden hulls to pieces while blasting them with a small but very hot explosion, but while the torpedoes had done their jobs and practically incinerated the ships they had scattered the gold and silver over a large area. It took her hours to move the trunks from the ships to the centre of the fleet before she headed back to the submarine. A few minutes later, there was a strange sound under the water as the treasure pile seemed to be warped between different planes of reality, and then they just disappeared.

* * *

The crew of the treasure ship seemed relaxed but if there had been any outsiders on the ship - passengers or merchants returning or travelling to Europe - then they might have noticed the typical tension that the sailors ordinarily felt whenever they travelled in these waters. In the last three months, dozens of treasure ships like their own had disappeared without a trace, with no survivors. None of the other ships were targeted - the warships and the merchant vessels were safe enough, but for the crews of treasure ships it was hell. They needed to be bribed more money - money that would probably never even come their way in the first place - just to make up the crews and augment the manpower.

But the attacks had slackened, and even the conventional pirates were not launching any real attacks because they had problems picking a hapless treasure ship and then plundering it.

For the crew of this particular treasure ship, no more than seven days out from the city of Panama and headed straight for Spain, it was a relief they had managed to get out this far without incident.

The Captain of the ship, a Spaniard by the name of Jose glanced at his first mate, a tall wiry man called Esteban. "Anything?" Jose asked.

Esteban shook his head.

"Nothing on the horizon?" Jose pressed, knowing his long-term friend was a man of few words, but they had been through so much they didn't need works to truly understand one another.

"No," Esteban spoke at last, relief colouring his tone though his captain knew he was trying not to be too optimistic, he had learnt the hard way God worked in truly mysterious but sometimes uncaring ways.

Jose nodded, dropping that part of the topic, knowing from experience not to say a word about his friend's superstitious attitude. But he shook his head in frustration. "I wish we didn't have what we have in our hold," he complained, making sure no-one was paying too much attention.

Esteban let out a wry, rasping chuckle. "I think most of the crew agree with you," he replied. "I know what you mean. Treasure cruises always attract trouble, just as much as passengers. Speaking of which, how are the ones onboard?"

Jose sighed. "Demanding," he growled. "They are demanding. They don't realise I'm the captain of this ship, that I have responsibilities."

"We know you do. Still, at least its an easy charter," Esteban replied.

It wasn't unusual for people to come and go between the Americas and Europe if the price was right, but it was annoying for the crews and officers of the ships eventually. While many sailors were delighted to have a change of company, that delight could quickly dull. Jose and Esteban had seen and experienced it many times before, but truthfully they would both prefer to take passengers to and from Spain rather than a hold full of treasure, and even that was dubious with all the piracy in the Spanish Main.

"Do you think we should have others?" Jose asked.

Esteban snorted. "No, it might be safer than treasure cruises, but I'd rather have the treasure or sacks of stuff to take home. At least they don't complain."

"You're right there, my friend."

Any further conversation was mooted when there was a sudden crash, and the two veteran mariners were taken by surprise when there was a sudden shout from the other ship that had crashed into them without running lights. The pirates screamed and rushed onto the deck, even as Esteban rushed to the bell to ring it quickly to get help from the men below while his friend grabbed a pair of bellying pins - they weren't the best weapons, but they were all he had.

The crew poured out of the lower decks, weapons ready, and they began to take on the pirates that were trying to plunder their ship, but one of the passengers, a rich looking man came onto the quarterdeck, took one look at the fighting and then went back to the cabin in terror.

It was bedlam on the deck as the pirates and the merchant sailors fought against one another, swords clanging against swords as both sides tried to gain an advantage over the other. Both crews were equal in size, but the pirates were prepared for a fight, the honest sailors were still fighting sleep.

But both sides were taken aback.

Esteban and Jose had been fighting shoulder to shoulder with some of their crew, and they had just thrown themselves at another band of pirates when Jose cursed. Following his gaze, Esteban quickly saw what had made Jose swear like that. A band of pirates were rushing at them, cutlasses, knives, dirks, and axes, dark and slick with blood, screaming like Viking berserkers, eyes like rabid dogs set deep in their foaming, insane mouths.

The two old friends knew they could not fight two bands at the same time, but they prepared themselves anyway. They calmed their minds and prepared to fight, to the death if necessary, and readied their weapons -

When suddenly the pirates glowed and screamed in agony as they collapsed to the deck. Both crews paused in their fights to look at the smoking corpses on the deck, their skin black and stinking the air faster than the sea could cope with.

"I was sort of hoping for a real fight, but if you lot are going to just stare at the dead, then you may as well go to a cemetery," the voice of a woman called out through the silence on the deck over the creaking of the wooden vessels.

As one the crews turned to face the speaker.

Leaning against the rail was a woman wearing a shockingly and scandalously short dress that was more like a belt, showing off long legs tucked away in black boots. She was wearing a dark coat that went down to her knees and covered her equally scandalous top.

In her hands were two large, oddly shaped guns and they were covering everyone.

A pirate broke the silence, grinning at the woman and licking his lips. "Bit outta your depth, eh, girlie?"

The woman's lip curled. "Fuck you," she hissed, raising one of her guns at him. There was a roar, a flash of light and the pirate dropped to the ground with half of his head splattered across the deck, his eyes wide open in shock. The woman grinned at the two crews, her eyes glinting maliciously.

"Who's next?" she asked, raising her guns again.

The two crews were united in their fear of this woman, and as they raised their weapons they both wondered if they would get through this.

* * *

Author's note - I've kind of based the Pirate on Revy from Black Lagoon, there will be a few moments like that later on.

Also, in one of the old Doctor Who magazines, a renegade Time Lady called Berenyi was a Designer.

Enjoy, and have a Merry Christmas.


	6. Chapter 6 Enter the Master

Disclaimer - I don't own Doctor Who.

Enter the Master.

The Time Lord looked at the screen in the darkened console room of his ship with interest as he watched his former schoolmate (though it was wrong to call their relationship something so mundane) battle her way through the crews of both the Spanish treasure ship and the pirate ship that had attacked. It was clear to both crews they knew they wouldn't be able to escape, especially with their opponent's firepower - already she had leapt into the rigging of the treasure ship and had proceeded to fire on the decks of both ships from higher ground. Both ships had suffered severe damage because of her weapons, more than would have taken from one of those simple muzzle loaded guns. He had been watching her for a while, following her through the Time Vortex, from one place in time and space to another, watching her plunder ship and planet. When he had heard she had been exiled from their homeworld, he had spent a lot of time trying to find her. He had been surprised in the manner of her departure from Gallifrey since, while he knew now she was capable of murder, she had long since begun ignoring that parasite Anzor who wasn't worth the energy for even him to waste time worrying about.

He had bigger fish to fry, as the humans said, with trying to build an empire in the stars. He had dozens of plans of course, but he would like to see them through with her by his side as his queen. In fact, he was uncertain just how long it had taken for the news she had left Gallifrey to arrive where he had been at the time. When he had heard she had left Gallifrey, he had spent some time looking for her. It was hard to find something without a good idea of where to look, but he was surprised that she hadn't tried to contact him.

Standing in the console room of his TARDIS, he watched with interest as she cut her way through the throng of human sailors - he had no intention of stopping her, he didn't care enough about the humans to get involved and besides he had plundered a few human ships and colonies in his own time - and he felt admiration stir within him.

The pair of them had been lovers during their time at the Academy, and not for the first time he wished he'd taken her away from Gallifrey when he'd had the chance, but he could make up with her for that.

She had not been easy to track, but when he had found trails of her presence in the universe, he had been surprised by how she practised piracy but he imagined she was learning her new trade. Theft was something that came easily to her, he knew that because he remembered the number of times she'd stolen something during their time at the Academy, and he wouldn't be surprised if she had stolen some of Ushas' research a few times.

But he had not expected this. He had become aware of her actions - stealing a submarine from the 21st century and bringing it back through time to a period where it would be virtually invincible, and she was using it to sink treasure ships in order to plunder them. That was something he could understand - while it was within her abilities to simply use one of the ships in this era, or disguise her own TARDIS to resemble a sailing ship, she knew the TARDIS's chameleon circuit couldn't copy weapons, and she would need them to attack and sink ships.

What he had not expected was to see his former lover throw herself into a fight with anachronistic weapons before putting one away and picking up a sword and fighting her way through.

The Time Lord smiled as he watched his lover, and he adjusted the controls so the scanner could zoom in so he could see her face. He was surprised to find her enjoying this since he remembered how much she preferred not to get too violent, but he sensed that while she could react violently she was still the same girl he remembered during their years back home on Gallifrey.

She had changed. She was more dangerous, she had probably spent a great deal of her time already with existing pirate and criminal groups in the universe, but it was hard for him to work out precisely where and when she had gone. It had taken him a long time to discover that she had hijacked the submarine from the 21st century and taken it back here. Earth had a very long history, and it was logical that she would have taken it back through time instead of forwards - the technology of the submarine was perfect for its era, but it was analogous to plucking a Roman war gallery from its time zone and putting it and its crew in the middle of the Second World War - they wouldn't stand a chance.

It had taken him a while for him to find the right period for her to be in, but when he'd arrived in this time zone where the Spanish Main was at its height, and piracy was practised here, it hadn't taken him long to find out she was here. He had done that easily enough by scanning the planet for any sign of atomic technology, and he had picked up the emissions of the submarine, and he had been watching her ever since.

The Time Lord had been a little bit bemused by the title she had chosen for herself.

The Pirate.

It sounded a little bit too obvious, really. But he sometimes had doubts about his own name that he had chosen for himself, even if it commanded respect in his mind. But for his former lover, it was clear she didn't really care about how others perceived her because of her name, and it wasn't entirely pretentious. She was a pirate, as these humans would attest too, and she was a ferocious opponent in battle. He wondered how she would feel about his offer for her to become his queen.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

The Pirate felt as if she were being watched. The was certainly something on the edge of her senses, but she was too caught up in the fight to really look for it. When she was finished with the crews of the pirate ship and the treasure ship the human buccaneers had come to plunder she would return to the TARDIS and run a scan. She dropped the sword in her hand with a little bit of frustration and whipped out her blaster and fired at the men coming towards her.

The quarterdeck of the treasure ship was in shambles. When she had climbed the rigging, she had ignored her fear of heights and hung her legs on one of the yardarms so she could swing like a bat and fired her blasters as the crews of both ships while she fired a few shots that badly damaged the pirate ship. Jose found himself struggling as he and his men along with the pirates were beaten back by this devil woman who seemed to have leapt from hell itself. With her strange weapons and then later the sword she had picked up during the battle, the woman had taken out a quarter of the fighters already before climbing up the rigging. The reason completely mystified Jose and the men who'd chased her up to the top of the mast, but when she'd begun firing down on them from above the answer was clear.

Jose leaned against the handrail as he watched the woman slaughter his men and the pirates before he regained his composure and rejoined the fight. He had seen many kinds of fights in his years at sea, but he had never encountered anything like this. The weapons this woman had were vicious and they didn't need reloading, the only thing she was poor at was sword fighting, though she made up for it with her brutality.

Esteban staggered towards him and leaned against the rail as well. Jose looked at his first mate with concern, seeing the exhaustion on his face and the way he was cradling an injured arm.

The two seamen remained where they were by the rail, regaining some of their strength and preparing to re-enter the fray, but watching as their men and the pirates fought against the woman who'd boarded the ship and attacked them. They watched as the captain of the pirates, dressed in a garishly coloured jacket with a hat with plumes of exotic feathers, wielding a massive sword. The pirate captain laughed as the woman stood there indifferently, and then he lunged for the woman….. who sidestepped his lunge, reached over his head and jerked, letting out a sickening snap. The pirate captain dropped to the quarterdeck with his neck snapped. Hidden from view behind one of the masts, Esteban and Jose tried to take stock of what they'd just seen.

"Who is that bitch?" Jose hissed.

Esteban shook his head as he leaned over the rail. "I don't know-wait, what is that in the water below?"

Jose glanced at his friend, wondering what in the name of the holy mother was going through his mind and where his priorities were since their ship had been invaded and their shipmates were being killed but then he saw what had caught his officer and longtime friend's attention.

In the water below the ship and moored by the wooden hull by some type of cable was a long, silver object.

"What is that?" Esteban whispered.

"I don't know, but I think that bitch came from this," Jose said, glancing over his shoulder. "I can't see her. Let's get down there. We can take her by surprise when she's finished with the ships," he paused at the thought of losing his ship and his crew, but it would be worth it just to kill the woman who'd slaughtered them. "Do you feel up to the climb down?" he asked his old friend.

Esteban knew there was no denying the idea was tempting, but he didn't know if he was strong enough to climb down. "I will do my best," he assured his old friend.

The two sailors nimbly but slowly down to the silver object. They found a tower jutting from the body and quickly found a hatch, passing a tube sticking out of the tower though they didn't know what it was, and they entered.

At the sight of the controls, the hatstand with a long bodysuit hanging up with some type of mask slung carelessly nearby, Esteban whispered.

"It's a ship, Jose."

"But if it is then why didn't we see it?"

"Maybe it's some new type of boat?" Esteban suggested though his tone made it clear he wasn't so sure.

The two sailors were about to explore the unusual craft and hopefully find a place to hide from the woman who'd attacked them when they heard a voice from behind them. "Oh it is definitely a boat," the voice of a man, rich and silky, said, "but it won't matter for you."

The sailors spun around and found themselves looking at a man who was wearing a black high collared jacket, black trousers and shoes. Esteban was a religious man and something about this man's sallow skin with the goatee beard which was as dark as his outfit and his large eyes with the high forehead made him think momentarily of Satan himself.

"What do you mean?" Jose asked, and Esteban winced at his friend's stupidity.

The man smiled, and that was when both sailors realised the man was holding an oddly shaped gun that was smaller than the ones the woman was armed with but smaller. "Because you are both dead," the man smiled and he fired his weapon in quick succession, and both sailors were hit at point blank range.

Jose looked up at the man weakly while he glanced at his wound. The wound was massive, blackened like a smith pouring molten metal into the wound. Jose knew he was dying, and he became steadily weak. "Who are you? Who is that woman?"

The man smiled down at him, regarding him almost kindly. "In reverse order, that woman is known as the Pirate, and I think she's better than those miserable amateurs that boarded your ship before she attacked, don't you think?" The man's mocking smirk became bigger if that was possible. "My name is the Master."

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On the ship, the Pirate looked down at the now dead wealthy merchants that hadn't taken part in the fighting with some regret before she turned and walked through the ship to the hold in search of survivors. She encountered a few of them, but they didn't have a chance of hiding from her. With the detector she had on her person, she easily managed to pick up the humans lurking below decks. The humans she found fought valiantly, but the Time Lady was worried, the feeling that someone she knew was nearby had not gone away but now she had the time to investigate, she probed with her mind because she was sure it was another Time Lord.

There was definitely something there, but she couldn't tell who it was. The other was blocking her, but she got the sense of amusement from the other Time Lord.

The Pirate went down into the hold, jumping down onto the ballast. With the crunch of gravel beneath her feet, she walked over to the chests that were chained to the walls. She reached out a hand to stroke one of the tightly bound chests before she moved away, and bent down. The Pirate dug through the ballast until she'd dug out a nice little hole, and she reached into her pocket, thankful for its extra-dimensional nature, and pulled out a small grey sphere with a white top. The Time Lady moved the top to the left, and then pressed the red button set into it, and she quickly rushed out of the hold, up onto the quarterdeck and over the handrail down to her submarine. But as the Time Lady was about to go through the top hatch she paused as she sensed the other Time Lord inside. The Pirate went through the hatch and sealed it tightly. She was going to be diving in a moment, but she hadn't taken more than three steps through the compartment when a familiar hissing sound caught her attention.

The submarine's ballast tanks were being opened. They were diving.

"I thought I'd save you the trouble since you've probably put a bomb on the ship," a voice called out.

The Pirate took out her blaster out of reflex and rushed to the bridge. She stopped in astonishment when she saw the bearded man standing tall and straight in front of one of the consoles. Their minds touched in a second, and she gasped. "Koschei?" she whispered, a smile growing on her face. But her smile disappeared a little bit when he shifted, not out of discomfort but out of annoyance. "My name is the Master now, just as you are the Pirate. Bit pretentious, don't you think?"

The Time Lady growled. "Oh and I suppose 'Master' if your average Gallifreyan title? What are you doing here, I've been looking for you and the others for months?"

That wasn't entirely true. After she'd escaped from Gallifrey after Anzor's framing of her, she had wandered the universe on her own for a while, all the time hoping to find some of the others from her Academy class who had left Gallifrey and gone renegade. But she hadn't actually gone out of her way to find them for long periods, just whims.

And it wasn't as if they hadn't known she had escaped. Time Lords were telepathic beings, and they knew what was going on back home enough to know she'd have escaped. The Pirate wasn't really bothered that she hadn't met any of the others, but she'd gone out looking for them out of a need for companionship - after spending decades and decades on Gallifrey being bored to death by her family and their need to brag, she had needed to meet other Time Lords who had her mindset.

The Master shrugged (something about his title worried her, but the Pirate couldn't completely put her finger on why it bothered her so much) and answered her questions. "I heard about one of your last raids, the K system if I remember correctly," he said, making the Pirate quirk an eyebrow. She had raided that system and plundered it completely before coming to Earth. "That was ages ago," she pointed out, "why didn't you tell me you were around?"

The Master smiled. "I wanted to surprise you," he said, stepping closer to the Time Lady. The Pirate sent him a rather bored look, but her lips quirked into a smile.

"You dove my submarine," she stated.

"I know you put a bomb on that ship. But is that all you want to do with your lives, Pirate? Plunder ships, plunder planets?"

The Pirate was taken aback by the question. She had often wondered whether or not there was more to her life than what she was doing for the moment. It was alright for races like humans, with their limited lifespans, but for a Time Lady where her lifespan was virtually insurmountable, there could be a wealth of things she could be doing that she didn't know about just yet.

"I haven't really thought about it," she said softly. "I like making things up as I go."

That was probably not the right thing to say, but truthfully it was all she could say for the time being.

The Master smiled, and she was instantly annoyed. She knew what he was thinking. He thought she was wasted doing what she was doing. But before she could say anything in retaliation, there was a chirp from one of the display panels. Ignoring the Master she went over to it and checked the readouts.

"The ship is sinking to the bottom," she said, though she didn't know why she was even telling him. She felt like she was being patronised by him, and it wasn't as if she didn't know what he was doing. When she had asked him what he was doing, they both knew she knew what he was doing.

The Pirate had heard rumours of a Time Lord going around causing all kinds of chaos, and she knew it was Koschei, though she didn't know why he was bothering that much. In many ways, the Master's activities were similar to Morbius' plans to conquer the universe and take the Time Lords out of the darkness. But the Master wasn't as obvious as Morbius. He was more interested in starting little interplanetary wars, or helping historical interstellar wars, sometimes supplying technology or intelligence that shouldn't have been provided. It wasn't enough to cause a major timeline disruption, so the Time Lords did not get involved.

It had surprised her a little bit, but not so much. When they'd been courting at the Academy Koschei had wanted more out of life, he had wanted to be able to command people like Magnus had, and he openly supported Morbius even when the other Time Lord's true colours were revealed. It had worried her a little bit, but he didn't do anything stupid.

The Pirate, along with the Rani and Millennia, were the only three female members of the Deca. As a result, they were sought after in a teasing, competitive way. The Pirate and the Rani had both been icy, but the Pirate had enjoyed the teasing. When she had lost her virginity to Koschei it had been a magical night, but she had always seen him looking at her with jealousy whenever she had done well in a test. It had frustrated her, she had tried to tell him that the tests were meaningless in the long run but he hadn't listened. Personally, the Pirate ignored the looks, but deep down they had bothered her.

"What are you going to do?"

The Pirate turned to him, rolling her eyes at the rather stupid question. "What do you think? I am going to salvage whatever is on that ship-," she announced, but the Master surprised her by chortling. "Is this all you are going to do?"

"What would you have me do?" she challenged him.

The Master gave her a smile and he walked towards her, slowly like a cat. The Pirate stood where she was, tensed up and ready for a fight, but to her surprise, the Time Lord leaned in and kissed her on the lips. The Pirate moaned into the kiss out of reflex as the Master deepened it. He pulled away.

"Come with me, after you've plundered the ship."

The Pirate narrowed her eyes, but she nodded regardless. The salvage of the ship was quicker with the Master helping her, but all the time she was in the water, she was still mystified by what he wanted to show her. When they were finished, the Pirate stripped out of her wetsuit slowly and re-donned her clothes, making sure her blaster was ready for anything; she didn't know what the Master was planning to do, but if he tried anything she'd shoot him.

When they were both out of the airlock, the Time Lords went to the bridge. "Your TARDIS or mine?" the Master asked.

The Pirate gave him a thin smile. "If you don't mind, I'd like to materialise my TARDIS inside your own," she said though she made sure it was a statement of fact. Non-negotiable.

The Master smiled as if he considered the matter of no importance, but she detected a slight annoyance in his eyes that only her long experience with him made clear. If he was hoping for her to ally herself with him, then he needed to work a bit more on his poker face.

Powering the submarine down, the Pirate prepared to leave, knowing the Master was waiting for her. She took her time, knowing Koschei didn't have a lot of patience but since she was toying with him she hoped he realised getting her on his side was not going to be easy.

When she was finished she headed for her TARDIS and headed for the console and began to power it up, and checking the surrounding space/time continuum for another TARDIS departure when the Master's face appeared in the scanner screen.

"Ready to leave?" he asked.

The Pirate nodded. "Get on with it."

The Master's face disappeared from the screen but not before she caught his annoyed expression. She sighed mentally, wishing Koschei would grow a pair already. Her TARDIS registered the dematerialisation, and she did likewise, but she materialised her own ship inside his own. It was easier for a TARDIS to materialise inside another while in the Time Vortex, but truthfully she didn't trust the Master well enough to keep his defences down while in real space.

As soon as her ship materialised inside the Master's TARDIS, the Pirate waited in case Koschei locked down her ship but there was no attempt. That didn't mean the Master wouldn't try something at some point. He might have taken an older model, but the Master was a genius. It had been years since she had left Gallifrey, and he had been out here longer than she had, and there was no telling what he had done to his own ship. She triggered the door control when she realised she'd put it off too long and it didn't look like he was going to try something new.

The Pirate walked out of her TARDIS and found herself in the console room of the Master' TARDIS The interior was black, and despite the lighting coming from the roundels there was something gloomy about it, there seemed to be shadows everywhere, waiting to jump out at her. The Master himself was standing by the console.

"You took your time," he observed.

The Time Lady shrugged her shoulders carelessly. "Where are we going?" she asked, studying the console behind him, but he blocked her view of the coordinate programmer.

The Master knew what she was doing, that was obvious. "It's a surprise," he replied.

The Pirate lifted an eyebrow. This was not going well. "Are you going to tell me what you've been doing since you've left Gallifrey?" she asked when she realised he wasn't going to give her a hint.

"I travelled. I was bored when I left home, so I wanted to see the wonders of the universe."

"I know how that feels, but what's changed?" She asked.

He became evasive. She sighed wearily and when Koschei was evasive he became annoyed.

"Much," he said, smiling at her hiding his annoyance before his expression became more thoughtful. "Do you remember Morbius, back home?"

"How can I forget him?" The Pirate replied, and unbidden memories she had locked away inside her mind came pouring out as she remembered how Morbius had risen to power, tried to force the Time Lords who had spent their time in power for 10 million years to re-enter the universe, and conquer it in the twisted belief the universe belonged to them.

What worried her was why the Master was even bringing him up, she had hoped he had put all that behind him. But apparently not.

* * *

What does the Master want? Stay tuned for the next chapter.


	7. Chapter 7 With the Master

Sorry, it's taken so long.

Enjoy.

With the Master.

The Pirate looked around the interior of the Master's TARDIS, prepared for a fight while she looked around the ship, unsure about what had made her old friend and lover turn up now. She had come to accept the fact she would meet her friends again if they did meet, but she had been more focused on building her experience as a space pirate.

At the moment there were a few questions on her mind.

How long had the Master been watching her?

What did he want to show her?

As she walked around the console room, the Pirate kept one of her eyes fixed on the Master. He was pretending to focus on the console, moving around the controls, but more than once his eyes followed her around the console room. There was something in his gaze that worried her, just as much as she was concerned about his title, 'Master' did worry her. He always had been very….. obsessed about order, but she had never imagined that he would become obsessed to the point where he would give himself that title.

"You are getting quite a reputation, you know."

She turned around. "I'm sorry?"

"I said you're getting quite a reputation," the Master repeated. "In the K system, they talk about you with fear."

The Pirate shrugged. She had long since become used to the idea of being feared by her victims and envied by her rivals, and the thorn in the side of whatever military force there was. They came and went, being disbanded by time as the centuries rolled by, but they would still be the same. That was one of the advantages of being a pirate with time travel, really; she could sit out the centuries and her pursuers would be locked in their own times, trying to find her, or get a lead on her.

"What made you decide to steal a submarine after Designing the pasts of a few humans and events to build it in the first place, and take it back through time to plunder a more primitive era on an equally primitive world?" the Master asked.

Bridling a little bit at the Earth being called primitive, even if she shared a few of those opinions, the Pirate pushed that to the side and answered the Master's question.

"I wanted a change," she said airily, "I was bored with space battles, piracy in space, on different worlds. I wanted to spend some time on Earth. But I didn't want to have a sailing ship, submarines are perfect. Why no human stole one and went on a plundering rampage baffles me," she said.

There was more to it than that, and she knew he knew that, but she wasn't going to tell him.

The Master shrugged his shoulders as though the matter meant nothing to him.

"So, what is it you wanted?" she asked to change the subject; she had nothing against talking about her piracy, but she was curious about what the Master was doing, how he had managed to find her, and what he planned to do with her now.

The Master left the console and walked over to her. "I want to forge a partnership with you," he said.

Somehow that wasn't news to the Time Lady. "A partnership?" her voice became coy. "What kind of partnership?"

A little surprised by how seductive she was sounding, the Master considered his reply and what the Time Lady would say to him. It had been a while since they had last seen one another. He had changed, and so had she, but one thing had not changed for the pair of them.

They both wanted adventure, something they would never have been able to acquire on Gallifrey.

He had always wanted power, ever since he had looked into the Untempered Schism. He had heard the Drumming, an interminable drum beat in his mind, and it had driven him insane and given the part of him which longed to see order imposed a chance to shine, but over the centuries since he had first been inducted into the Academy back home, his obsession with law, his law, and his own sense of order had grown.

The Pirate had been his exact opposite.

She didn't care about order, she couldn't care less who was the President of the High Council of the Time Lords. All she cared about was her own excitement, and knowing what she did now she probably had it in spades. But what surprised him the most was how long she had stayed on Gallifrey when she could have simply stolen a TARDIS like he had and become a renegade. The Master was tempted to ask her why she had waited for so long, but he didn't know if there was more to the story than he imagined.

What was it that was said on Earth, opposites attract? Well, that was true if you looked at magnets, but in the real world and the real universe and you happened to see the Pirate and him then you saw it was the truth. But neither he nor she was the marrying type, and they had been together.

They preferred to have a straightforward relationship.

He wasn't sure if she planned to come with him, and join him in the proposed partnership but it would be great if she did. He studied her beautiful face and had no trouble imagining her standing side by side with him.

Meanwhile, the Pirate was also thinking about the proposed partnership. Back on the submarine, she had thought about the news she had been hearing ever since she had left her home world behind to travel the stars and plunder a few ships and worlds, of a Time Lord who was out to cause chaos but she had not bothered to find him despite a few halfhearted attempts here and there. She had been more concerned with setting herself up as a pirate, learning the ins and the outs of the trade, and using her TARDIS to commit the raids while learning from her mistakes.

But she was surprised the Master had decided to find her, she had put him and the others out of her mind while she'd concentrated on her own life.

It had been a long time since she had seen him, and it had been an even longer time since she had encountered another of her people.

While being with him at the Academy had been fun since they had not only taken each other's virginities, she had shown him how to live a little bit so then his constant obsession with order would lighten up a bit, and it had worked.

But Koschei (she knew HER own moniker would attract attention, but she actually found the name her old friend and lover had chosen was a bit…pretentious since while he was good at what he did, he was a long way from being a master of anything) had worried her when she had learnt he supported Morbius. Now, at first, she had as well since Morbius' aims were to take the Time Lords out of the technological stagnation which had held them back for centuries, and many other young Time Lords and Ladies had also supported him but that had changed when his ideas and his ideals became more and more dangerous.

When Morbius had gone out into the universe, he had been exposed as the power-hungry tyrant he was, but he did more than go out into the universe, carving out a large chunk. He had exposed the Time Lords existence or giving other alien races and cultures the awareness an extremely old and powerful species was watching their every move, and now there were races and cultures who were worried the rest of Morbius' people were going to come out and cause further troubles.

The Pirate hoped the Master didn't go down the same route.

It was all too clear to her that he was just as driven as Morbius, but she hoped that the other Time Lord's downfall and various mistakes had gotten through to him. She could only hope.

She had a good idea what the partnership was.

He wanted her to join him.

The Pirate had no desire to rule or govern anything. She wasn't interested in power of that degree. She preferred to have a simpler life, especially after she had dropped in at certain points in history. Empires didn't last, especially those built on the shoulders of slaves.

No, she was just happy to plunder wherever she could, but even among some groups of pirates, there were those who were full of their own delusions.

Look at the Rocketmen; they were powerful, they'd spread fear so the very sound of their name and the sight of their flight-suits, and the stories of their deeds meant more people surrendered to them rather than get themselves killed in such a needless manner, yet their leader was power-crazed, arrogant madman who was better off killed.

The Rocketmen was known to have armies of slaves in their thrall, and there was no way to get them out. Many races and organisations that had come to see the pirates as enemies had tried and failed to make a dent to let them go. While many Rocketmen groups had either been wiped out, especially by the more violent hunts to round them up and deal with them at long last, the majority were still free. The Pirate had not encountered the Rocketmen, not yet, but she knew it was only a matter of time.

She wasn't sure if the meeting came about because she was in the middle of being somewhere the Rocketmen just happened to attack, or if she met them when she was plundering a ship or a planet herself, but she knew they would be meeting - she had already come across Maurice Cavens' work, so it stood to reason they would meet in the future.

"A mutual partnership," the Master said.

He decided that it would be better to keep everything simple for the time being. He had spent a few moments considering his reply, but she had surprised him with just how…seductive she was being.

The Pirate wasn't satisfied with that answer. She didn't think the Master would be happy with just conducting piracy like she was, so that meant his motives were purely different from hers.

"What type of partnership? Does it involve ruling by your side?"

Time Lords were telepathic beings by nature, nurtured by careful genetic intervention over the aeons to help them gain a better awareness of their surroundings, but as a result of that gift, they had needed to develop barriers to protect their minds. The Time Lords had learnt soon enough that telepathy was sometimes more problematic than it was worth having. Telepathy could allow races and individuals to know what another was thinking, but the Time Lords saw it as vulgar to enter the minds of another, seeing it as an invasion of privacy if performed too often.

Barriers were made by individual Time Lords to prevent any unwanted intrusions, and those barriers made it possible for Time Lords to hold their thoughts inward, but it was easy for them to get surprised and show that emotion.

The moment the questions were out of her mouth and the Master reacted by looking surprised and a little annoyed his little surprise was out in the open in such a manner she realised she'd hit the nail right on the dot.

"You're too easy to read," she said to him.

She was telling the truth. Ever since they had been at the Academy and had become friends and lovers despite their totally different attitudes and viewpoints, the Master was easy to read since many of his desires were broadcasted to all.

"You've ruined my surprise," the Master replied, trying to sound upbeat despite what she'd just said, but she could see he was holding onto his anger. Her hand, by reflex and deliberation, went to the blaster she carried.

The Master was supposed to see the movement, and she was unsurprised when he said with a tone of voice that sounded like a schoolteacher scolding a child though that annoyed her as well. "That blaster won't work in here," he said.

Did he truly think she wouldn't have known the TARDIS's state of grace system was operating? What upset her the most was that he didn't seem to realise she would defend herself, blaster, or not.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked while trying to keep her voice neutral; the last thing she wanted was for him to think she was going to fire foolishly at him only for him to be proven right. She knew that his TARDIS's state of grace system was working, did he think she was stupid? The slight against her intelligence was annoying, but so too was not knowing where his TARDIS was going.

The Master's smile became more of a skull-head grimace. He had clearly been looking forward to surprising her only for it to be ruined, but she couldn't find it within herself to care.

"You'll see," he growled and stalked back to the console.

The Pirate rolled her eyes at his childishness. "Oh grow up!" she snapped. "Just grow the fuck up! You're still acting like a child, even now."

"BE SILENT!"

The Pirate took out her blaster and aimed it at his head, her face cold. "Just get on with it," she whispered, having had enough of his need to make a big drama out of everything.

The Master sneered at the gun, not even trying to contain his emotions anymore. "That blaster won't work in here-," he said.

"How do you know that?" The Pirate interrupted; she felt a bit foolish about drawing her weapon out on him, but she was tired of him having to make a big fuss out of everything. "I could have modified the blaster so then it can fire inside this room. I'm just making sure you don't make a stupid mistake that could see you shot and forced to regenerate because you lost your temper."

The Master's expression turned ugly, but he took a moment to push the anger aside but the Pirate refused to put her weapon away until he resembled anything calm. "I apologise," he said in a more reasonable tone. "I have been stressed recently, and I have been trying to find you-."

The Pirate tuned him out a little bit. It was perhaps one of the stupidest excuses she had heard, but she decided to accept it silently for the time being and focus on the here and now.

Fortunately for the sanity of the two Time Lords, the trip did not take too long. The TARDIS arrived at their destination ten minutes later, but those ten minutes were stifling for the Time Lady. She had put the blaster away, but she kept the console between herself and the Master. She had made a mistake in telling the Master to grow up, but she had become so sick and tired of him and his attitude. If he kept it up then there would be consequences. She had learnt a great deal since she had left Gallifrey, but he had left the planet long before she had, and Rasssilon only knew what he had picked up himself.

The Pirate decided to take a wait and see approach to the problem.

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"This is what you wanted to show me?" The Pirate's question only stoked the fire of anger the Master was nursing inside of him, a fire of burning anger and resentment and he was beginning to wonder if he had made the right choice bringing this arrogant woman into his confidence.

He was proud of what he had built up. The planet they were on was a relatively distant one, in a fairly dense star system. The planet and its location had been hard for the Master to detect, but when he had found it in a remote part of its galaxy, it was perfect for his operations. The solar system was rich in minerals which would help him with any number of his plans, and he had already sent out a number of robot drones and androids deeper into the star system to explore and mine the deposits found, and begin building a fleet of warships to his design.

The Master knew it was dangerous to build a number of warships and equip them with the means of travelling through time since it would attract the attention of the Time Lords, but he considered it to be a necessary risk for when he wanted to conquer the galaxy and bring it under his rule. When he had found out about the Pirate and how she had been exiled from Gallifrey he had thought about persuading her to rule by his side, and she could effortlessly plunder anything she wanted if she had an empire.

Seriously the Master had genuinely no idea what he could have expected from the Time Lady, and what he had already gone through had shattered his preconceptions about how things would have gone. He had followed her in his TARDIS, tracking her movements and dropping into the wake of her piracy on various worlds and ships, both on Earth's oceans and in space, and he had been truly impressed when he had seen how she had gone through the seamen, pirates and merchants on those two ships when he had picked her up. She had clearly been practising and had become good at what she'd done.

Unfortunately, her attitude led much to be desired.

The Master had built a massive city with the use of robot drones he'd stolen from a few colonisation ships - humans used them to construct shelters on worlds they colonised after they had come to see how limited prefabricated dwellings were, they had begun using robot drones to mine the local minerals and rock, refine them a little bit, and then use them to construct buildings the humans could live in to act as a foundation for what was to come.

The Master had stolen them to construct his city. It wasn't really a city, but more of a self-contained futuristic castle that was modelled on a citadel with a spaceport installed. He had had a number of small, light warships constructed. He had plans to use them to launch invasions of planets, and after he had dominated them with his androids, the Master planned to move onwards.

In his mind, the ships were impressive.

Unknown to him the Pirate was also impressed, but only with the number of ships in the port. Like all Time Lords, she didn't have much of an interest in using any other form of transport technology other than a TARDIS, but she wondered if her old friend had overreached himself this time around.

"Yes," the Master ground out, "this is what I wanted to show you. I want to join forces with you."

The Pirate didn't believe him; she knew he was telling the truth, but she had a feeling he had a different plan in mind. "What do you mean, join forces?"

The Master closed his eyes for a second and then reopened them again. "You are a pirate, I want to help you-," he said.

"You mocked what I was doing when we were on Earth," the Pirate interrupted, not hesitating to point out his earlier stupidity.

"That was because you were doing it on your own," the Master said, not at all put out by what she had just said, well at least that was what someone who didn't understand or knew the Master would believe, but the Pirate knew the Time Lord well. He was annoyed that one of his own comments was being used against him, but she was beyond caring. "Think about it, Pirate, you and I could plunder as much as we want. You don't need to sneak around anymore."

Knowing the Master as she did, the Pirate tuned him out a little bit and thought about what he was saying. She was surprised that had been gone from mocking her chosen path after leaving their planet and was now doing a complete 180 and now wanted to be a pirate himself. She knew he was more than capable of doing it, but she had the feeling he believed piracy was beneath him.

"Why would you do this?" she asked; she had never considered herself the paranoid type, but she had never imagined Anzor plotting to fake his own death to get one over her.

"Do what?"

"Ask to join forces, say you want to plunder as much as you could, why?" The Pirate asked.

"You've changed. A long time ago you and I used to help each other when we used to prank the tutors and students-," the Master said, but she interrupted him again. "That was different, and besides as you've just correctly claimed I have changed, I changed when I was framed for something I didn't do! I changed when I was forced to realise being a pirate was a dangerous business, and one I would need to change in order to be a good one. Why do you want to help me?"

"I feel that you and I can be a great team now like we were before," the Master argued, getting frustrated with the Pirate's inability to accept his offer, especially since he had his own ulterior motives. It occurred to him that she might be seeing through him, but he needed to persevere, but then he decided to be honest.

"Alright, I admit it. The piracy is just a side. I want to conquer an empire, one we can both rule together."

The Pirate sighed, her suspicions were confirmed.

Hearing that sigh made the Master realise he was losing her, and he wasn't sure if he should be angrier with himself for not making a good argument or by telling her that she was wasted in her profession.

The look in his eyes made the Pirate think about the whole thing. "Look, why should we become partners?"

"Think about it, instead of just using your TARDIS to pop on planets and ships on your own, the pair of us can either use these ships," the Master gestured at the fleet of ships, "we can carry out pirate raids, but think about how great it would be to stir things up with an interstellar war. I will lead the advance and you conduct the raids. Together, the two of us can divide our takings 50/50."

The Pirate was intrigued. While she personally found it repugnant to start a war, she had to admit it would stir things up a bit if there was a war. There would be plenty of loot to go around, but she was unsure if the partnership would last. She was tempted by his offer. It wasn't difficult for her to use the TARDIS to find a planet that was ideal for plundering, whereas a ship was easy. But a war would be perfect for her aims since it would mean a lot more plunder for her in the long run. Wars meant large amounts of debris in space, which meant she could salvage the parts so then she could sell them off.

Supply lines meant large numbers of ships could be targeted and she could effortlessly board them and take what they had. But if she went through with this then she would have to make the rules and set the guidelines for the Master, but she had to admit it was tempting…

"Okay," she replied, surprising the Master who had probably expected her to haggle a bit more. "I'll join you."

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	8. Chapter 8 The Partnership falls apart

The Partnership falls apart.

The Pirate grinned as she raced through the ship, her transcendental bag full of the loot as she dodged the blaster bolts being fired at her as she raced back to her TARDIS. The Pirate was in heaven, this was her element. True, she didn't like being involved in an interstellar war, but if it helped her with her piracy, then who cared? Besides, after being in this part of the universe - dreary as it was - for a few months, the Pirate had learnt very early on that a war would have broken out in this part of space anyway.

While she didn't like the new methods her old friend had started to resort too, she had to admit to herself it was a joy to flex her piratical muscles and get some good experience. She had never imagined using a war to stoke the fire and get races sending more and more ships out in supply lines and then board them, kill a few of the crew, and steal their cargoes.

But like all things, the partnership had soured.

At first, it wasn't so bad.

In the four months since she and the Master had become partners, the Master had launched his fleet of robot ships and began conducting attacks on the various local races, bringing his more advanced technology onto them though he always held back from shattering them; the Master had an annoying habit of playing with his enemies, and although he could effortlessly wipe out his enemies he invariably played with them, but in this case the Pirate was grateful because it meant those powers were frightened and they were gathering materials, building supply lines that made it easier for her to mount attacks.

A bolt whizzed past her, the glowing pulse of energy so close to her skin that it tingled, and her muscles felt numb for a moment as it flashed past her and smashed into a bulkhead. Rivulets of molten metal and plastic trickled down the wall, the acrid stench of melted metalloplastic filled the air as she rushed past the wall.

She fired a few bolts from her own weapon before rushing onwards, not bothering to stop and turn back to see if she'd killed or injured one of the soldiers behind her as she raced for her TARDIS. The soldiers were larger than she was, and their bulk slowed them down compared to the comparatively skinnier Time Lady, who raced ahead for the TARDIS.

The Pirate had just reached her ship and had pressed the remote lock she'd placed on her key to unlock the door so then whenever she was in a hurry she didn't fumble with the key, but just as she was getting inside one of the soldiers fired his weapon towards her, but she managed to get inside and rushed to the console.

Once the TARDIS was in the Time Vortex again, the Pirate set the controls to take her to the next location of a supply line. As the TARDIS headed towards the new destination, she knew that she would have to face the Master again eventually. Things between them were not going well. The pair of them had changed since they had left Gallifrey, she knew that and could delude herself, but something had happened to the Master that had changed him way beyond that pretentious title of his.

Although the pair of them were supposed to be partners, they had quickly found out their different experiences had shaped them just as different, and the pair of them had come to blows a few times.

What the Pirate really disliked about the arrangement was how the Master seemed to believe he had the right to tell her what to do; it was okay in her mind if he told her where the ships and planets would be, and what they contained to appease her and make sure that she knew he was upholding his own part of their partnership arrangement, but she was frustrated by the Master's need to control everything that she did.

Their arrangement had also branched out onto a more sexual side, but the Pirate was always grateful to get away from the Master's control freak attitude, and now the Time Lady was doing all she could to spend time away from the planet that had been made into the base (she wasn't going to call it their's) and used it to stash the loot there.

The Pirate shook her head and checked the latest messages the Master had sent to her. It wasn't much - the Master had used his fleet of ships to launch an attack on one of the planets belonging to one of the races unlucky enough to live in this part of space. The Master wanted her to go to the planet and plunder it while the fleet of ships battered it's defences down, something that she didn't really like. She preferred the element of surprise, personally, but ever since this partnership had begun and she had begun working with the Master, she had quickly seen some of the benefits of having a distraction like an attack occurring while you did the work.

Idly the Pirate checked the TARDIS's files on the planet in question - it was a colony world, rich in minerals and the colony had branched outwards into the rest of the solar system and began to industrialise it. Yes, it was a good place to plunder. The Pirate set the coordinates for the planet.

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A few days later, the Pirate multitasked between having sex with the Master and thinking about the last few days she had been plundering the worlds that her fellow Time Lord had conquered. While the Master was biting her neck, leaving behind love bites while massaging her breasts, the Pirate moaned in bliss, remembering how she had plundered the first planet.

Ordinarily, the Pirate didn't like stealing anything from worlds that had been battered down after a war, but at that point with the Master's android army keeping the inhabitants busy, it had been easy to take anything they had wanted.

While she didn't like the thought of using near mindless machines on a planet, the Pirate had to hand it to the Master for constructing such an army in the first place.

She gasped when the Master none too gently forced her legs open, and thrust his way into her - she was surprised by the lack of kindness, but she guessed the Master was still annoyed by her earlier remarks to him, and how she had called him up for being so childish and petty, and since he had worked out arguing was not going to work, he had decided to take his anger out on her when they were having sex.

His pettiness was becoming beyond a joke.

The Pirate turned her mind back to the numerous raids she had conducted recently, keeping one part of her mind aware of what the Master was doing to her so if he stopped then she would be aware of it.

She was beginning to have second thoughts about working with the Master. While things had been going well, and the amount of loot was looking nice, the Pirate had found several reasons to want to get away from the other Time Lord. For a start, she didn't like the thought of pummelling down planets and cultures that couldn't fight back, she had encountered several of them. Some of them had been barely out of the time when they had only just learnt their worlds were round, or they were too busy fighting their own internecine conflicts so the Master considered them ideal for conquest since the chances were they would be too weak from fighting to do anything when the Master's army arrived on their planets.

The Pirate had easily plundered those planets after the Master's army was finished, but she didn't have to like the way they were brought down. After the Master emptied inside himself for the last time, making her pretend to moan in delight, the Pirate couldn't help but see the Master for the madman he was shown to be.

When she was sure the Master was asleep, she got out of bed carefully and quietly, making sure all of her telepathic barriers were up, thankful that Time Lords needed little in the way of actual REM sleep, and walked over to one of the massive windows showing space as the ship travelled at warp.

The Master had moved the majority of his base off the planet he had adopted as his own, so he could lead offensive after offensive against the races and planets in this part of the galaxy before he moved onto bigger things.

Looking out of the window, the Pirate studied the lines of the ship. It was massive, it's shape reminding her of those times she had been on Earth and witnessed sharks and killer whales swimming through the ocean, but this thing reminded her of a massive Star Destroyer or Battlestar from Earth's science fiction.

A massive moving gun platform, bristling with heavy-duty weapons and yet equipped with smaller weapons which were still deadly enough to shatter a small world like an egg. Leaning against the port window, she became lost in her thoughts as the Master's flagship travelled slowly through space, alongside the fleet as they moved in a giant warp bubble towards their destination.

Her thoughts led her to keep on thinking about the reasons why she didn't like being with the Master anymore. At first, it had been a partnership, and while she had seen with her own eyes the Master even following her advice grudgingly, but the Master had quickly grown tired of her opinions and now he just refused to listen and heed what she was saying.

Sometimes she would see the Master get quite violent. He would throw the breakfasts prepared for him by the robots and computers enslaved by him away if he had been confronted by news or advice he genuinely did not want to hear. To make matters worse, more than once the Master had even seemed to be on the verge of physically harming her. It was only the threat of being shot with the blaster she carried that kept the other Time Lord at bay, but the Pirate knew it would not be long before he moved beyond that fear and would probably try to harm her.

The Pirate had learnt self-defence and she had visited worlds like Venus to learn a bit about their fighting arts, but her knowledge of the subject was a bit rushed. She had no idea how much the Master had learnt, even at this point in time since he was keeping the majority secret from her.

But then that was the Master for you.

When they had been growing up on Gallifrey, the pair of them had come to the Academy with different mindsets (which didn't even involve whatever brainwashing and potential mental trauma caused by the Untempered Schism), but where she had quickly become as apathetic as some of the others in their classes. As Theta, she had been a good student, but after a while, she had behaved much like a schoolgirl. She had joined the Deca, which had members like Drax, Vansell, Millennia, Rallon, Mortimus, Magnus, the Rani, and of course the Master.

They had been the creme de la creme of the Academy, everyone envied and hated them because of who they were - each one of them brought new ideas to the table, be it social connections, simple wealth, or just brain power. The Pirate brought a mix of all of them, though when it came to wealth and social connections she didn't have that much, but she had it. That was the problem with the Academy, really - the Time Lords were so determined to make their young students into politicians when there was more to life than arguing with each other on matters which revolved again and again like the orbit of a planet.

And then there were the ceremonies; Runcible the moron loved them, he had been inspired to remain on Gallifrey, to spend the rest of his life, and Rassilon only knew how long that would be, filming one dusty ceremony after another, simpering around the exquisitely robed Time Lords and Ladies, either at a Presidential resignation day, or when the President's birthday turned up and the entire High Council turned out to honour it.

But the members of the Deca and those other Time Lord groups who wanted to usher their planet out of the stagnation it had fallen into centuries ago. Thinking about Gallifrey saddened the Pirate, though the thought of the rest of her people sickened her since they had been so convinced of her guilt with that mess with Anzor, though if she ever saw the slimy piece of crap out here, in the universe, she would kill him. But Gallifrey and her people used to be great. Now they were content to just stand and watch as the universe went on, and they seemed happy and content to just do that, just continue doing the same things like sitting around all day dressed in those robes while changing the desktop theme of their citadels once every six millennia, training their new generations to do the same thing and just….live for centuries and centuries without regeneration.

After graduating from the Academy, all of her friends had left. But first of all, the Master and Magnus had supported Morbius's attempts to take over Gallifrey and the High Council before he was finally driven off the planet. Magnus managed to remain on the planet for a little while longer, Rassilon only knew how, but the Master had escaped. The Pirate hadn't bothered to get many of the details; she had had zero interest in the activities of the political groups.

It seemed to happen with each graduation from the Academy, she thought to herself as she looked out over the massive vista as the fleet moved in the gigantic warp bubble - it was being generated by a small number of ships with 'mirrors' which shaped and controlled the flow of energy that generated the warp bubble - as they continued to head towards the unlucky solar systems that the Master planned to smash, so many Time Lords were prepared to try to 'change' Gallifrey, but it never happened.

Oh, sure the groups might talk about change, but after a while, they ducked their heads and joined the crowd. That was the fact she didn't like politics were two of the reasons why she had not bothered to get involved.

But truthfully…..

The Pirate sighed as she remembered the Consolidator, the starship the Time Lords had constructed to contain all the evilest technologies and races, like the Sild, and how the Time Lords had locked them inside the ship, either in suspended animation or in stasis. The early Time Lords had created it after they had achieved time travel and used that power to shape history. From all across space and time, across the aeons, across millions of light years, the Time Lords had drawn on their wisdom and influence to collect weapons and technologies, but also entire races that were pure evil.

The Time Lords didn't destroy them. They were too clever for that; you didn't have a history spanning a billion years and spend 10 million years of that time frame as the Lords of Time without learning how to become more crafty. They also sought entombed races and technologies that had been fought to a standstill and had either retreated into being locked up by their enemies, or they had voluntarily hibernation so then they could awaken once more in a galaxy where time itself had been used as a weapon to destroy their enemies, so then they could have another go in the future against the races of the new galaxy, races who were more primitive than themselves, and cause death and destruction on levels reaching in the trillions.

That was a nice piece of forward thinking for you.

Rather than just leave those entombed races to still remain at large, risking discovery because of a newer race stumbling upon them by accident, the Time Lords simply scooped them up and put them into the limitless dimensional depths of the Consolidator. They would never be free, they were being left to rot like toxic waste in the depths of that mighty ship. The Consolidator was the most powerful and the most well-designed prison ship ever devised. It could protect itself, make sure its cargos could not break free suddenly or escape, and it was armoured against intruders; a fleet of ships could attack the ship, and their weapons wouldn't even dent the sides, and their best shot would hardly damage a single atom of the hull.

It was autonomous, self-repairing, but it wasn't enough.

Once the Time Lords had the ship, there had been a debate. Many believed that since they had collected all of the most ancient evils in the universe, along with a load of new ones, though how they had managed to miss the Daleks or the Cybermen was beyond her comprehension, it should be destroyed.

Smash it into a star.

Push it into a black hole. But others argued back, saying that the technologies and sciences which had been considered barbaric by even some of the most warlike races, like the Sontarans, in the modern universe, could actually be made into a benefit and have benevolent applications. Some even suggested the possibility of being able to rehabilitate the aliens locked inside.

The arguments had gone on and on for centuries. No agreement was made, and surprisingly the Time Lords couldn't even reach a simple compromise.

In the end, the Time Lords had decided to just foist the problem off to their descendants. Send the ship off into the future, and when it emerged in a future timezone, it was hoped the Time Lords of the far future would have had the time needed to ponder their decision concerning the Consolidator.

Since it would be travelling through the centuries, the ship would pose no threat at all to Galactic stability.

But the Time Lords hadn't thought the problem through because their plan to send the ship off into the future was a good one, they didn't stop to remember one simple facet of temporal physics.

The larger the mass, the greater the amount of energy needed to create a time field; the Time Lords had solved the problem when they had created the first TARDISes, simply create a pocket universe for the Time Lords to exist within the ship, and make the new reality large enough to house the sheer engine size needed to send the ship into the Time Vortex. The Time Lords were good, but even they didn't know how to solve the problem of creating a temporal rift and powering it to send the Consolidator into the future.

After the failures to approach the problem, the Time Lords had turned to two of their students to solve it for them. Those Time Lords were promising graduates of the Academy, both of them completely different. One of them was a risk-taker, a maverick, but always trying to think a few moves ahead, and the other was a logician.

They were the Pirate and the Master, and at the time they had been firm friends, lovers, even and rivals. Both of them had doubted the wisdom of the Consolidator project from the moment it was dropped into their laps. In time the pair of them changed their approaches. The Master had decided to use a black hole, ripped open to provide the sheer amount of energy needed to create such a rift. His maths on the idea was watertight, and he had needed to answer for the entire project.

But she had had a different approach to the problem. Instead of simply sending it off into the future, the Time Lords should put it into a Time Loop. They had the science and the power needed to lock a world away, and the Consolidator was infinitely smaller than a planet. In the end the Time Lords, desiring the more complex needs, just went with the Master's approach. It had ended up in a failure, though whether or not that was positively true, she didn't know.

What she did know was that the incident in question had caused a wedge to be driven between her and the Master, and judging by the time since they'd been separated (Omega, she made it sound like they had been married) he had had plenty of time to just see her as a nuisance, though where he got that idea from she had no idea.

The Pirate stood by the window for a long time, trying to see how fast they were going - it was a simple enough equation for a Time Lord to make in their minds, but with so many ships blocking the view, it was hard for her to get a clearer view of the starfield.

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Things between her and the Master became tenser around breakfast. She had been eating her usual light but filling meal, doubtful that the Master would try to poison her because while he was capable of it, it wasn't a stylish way for him to murder someone. At least she hoped that was true, but she was incredibly cautious nonetheless.

"I felt you get up," the Master didn't take his eyes off his own meal as he slowly ate.

"I wanted to admire the view," the Pirate replied. "I don't normally get a chance to travel in a ship travelling in a warp bubble."

The Master chuckled, but whether he believed her or not she didn't know, but she doubted it would make any difference. "I know," he looked up at her, "I spend a lot of time watching it whenever I'm onboard this ship, admiring the warp bubble as it contorts space and brings the targets closer. Another world in my grasp."

Licking her lips, trying to hide her trepidation at hearing that and how dismissive he was about taking another world over, the Pirate did her best to be nonchalant as she tried to find something to say as a reply.

"It is glorious," she said.

The Master nodded, almost uncaringly and continued eating. The Pirate watched him for a second before she realised he was going to change the subject.

She was right.

"I wanted to talk to you about the upcoming attacks. There won't be any time for you stick around to pick up much, we're going to go through the region, so you are going to have to pick up what we leave in our wake."

Although she kept her features neutral and even a bit curious, the Pirate hid the nervousness she was feeling all of a sudden. This was new to her, and she wondered what the Master was doing.

"Why the change of plan?" she asked him.

"I want someone organic and can think outside of the box instead of a robot or a computer to lead the attacks, but you should have time to do your thing afterwards," the Master's voice was silky and yet dismissive as though he were bored about accommodating her and with his part of the bargain. The Pirate was going to ask him why there had been a sudden change of plan - she could understand why the Master would want a living, thinking to be and not some tinpot machine using logical reasoning all the time, but she couldn't understand why he was doing it now.

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A few hours later, the Master was safe in his palace-ship, while the Pirate used her TARDIS to travel to one of the other ships, landing her ship on the bridge. It hadn't been a problem moving through the Vortex when the ships were travelling in a warp bubble, but the moment her TARDIS materialised onboard the robot warship, she found herself confronted with a dozen of the Master's androids.

They weren't really anything special - they were just tall, lightly armoured humanoid machines with legs and arms and a spherical head like a matte black egg with an optical scanner built in. They didn't speak. As soon as she arrived on the bridge, they stopped what they were doing and regarded her for a moment as she left the safety of her TARDIS, and stood on the bridge silently and waited for their optical scanners to check her out, and see that she was a Time Lord like the Master; she had gathered that the Master had programmed his armies of machines to not harm Time Lords like himself, though she knew the program was only there to stop one of the robots malfunctioning and trying to kill him.

The scanning matrix was simple; the robots would be scanning the organ and brain structure first. Time Lords had many differences in their anatomy compared to other aliens, but the Master had included a genetic scan as well.

The Pirate had never liked androids or robots; she had encountered her fair share of defensive systems and mechanisms on various ships. Robots came in various sizes and types. Some of them were built into a ship, sometimes they activated when the computer turned them on and sent them on their way if the computer's automated surveillance systems detected something that shouldn't be there. On one of the very first ships she raided, she didn't bother to check the TARDIS's scanner readings and had gone out. When she returned, she was nursing a truly bad burn to her back that scarred parts of her back, her shoulders, and went as far down as her right ankle. She had treated the injuries, but she hadn't tried to remove the burn damage.

It served as a grim reminder to her she shouldn't become too cocky and overconfident, and it was a lesson that she followed to this day. True, when she regenerated for the first time, she would lose the scar damage, but the memory alone should teach her not to be stupid.

Another encounter with a robot security system she had was when she had travelled to a planet where she raided a massive warehouse. The place contained a security system called an automated intruder grid, which was basically a spiders-web of interconnecting metal pylons and rods that crossed and crisscrossed the floors, the ceilings and the walls. They were armed with all kinds of weapons; laser bolters, magnetic pulse guns, gas guns, steel mesh crossbows, and there were a host of other traps the Pirate had been lucky not to be trapped in. It had been a nightmare because there had been another thief there in the warehouse, and he hadn't had the precautions that she had had.

She had had a number of other truly bad experiences with other robots and computers over the years since she had left Gallifrey, but that didn't make her any less nervous at this point.

Once the machines had scanned her body - she didn't like the thought of these things knowing what her genetic structure was like, but she knew if she wanted her life to go much, much easier, she would have to accept it - they turned around and went back to their tasks as though she wasn't there. Happy there wouldn't be any problem, the Pirate walked up to the rail which had the ship's master computer installed. There were two other robots nearby, linked into the ship already.

The robots and the ships connected to each other, and when they did they became a single unit, like an artificial intelligence gestalt. Each robot's computer was plugged into a different system, inputting commands the Master fed into them from his ship. The Pirate found the system a bit basic, but then again so was the idea of a computer-controlled ship. It didn't matter really what type the Master used, and besides, she didn't really give a damn if the robots did most of the ship's work for them. She was just thankful that the Master had been thoughtful to include atmospheres to his ships because he might want to use one of them as a flagship using his own security code.

The Pirate was just…annoyed that she didn't have any way of knowing how the 'battle' if it could be called that since, thanks to the Master's Time Lord mind where he would have access to technology beyond the unfortunates fighting him, it would be more like giving a machine gun to a peasant and telling him to shoot down an army of medieval knights. Short-lived and very bloody. The Pirate knew the Master didn't care.

She had known that the computers and the robots on the ship had access to the external monitors but she didn't have any access to what the Master used to monitor the battles he participated in, so she had prepared for that by joining a small palmtop scanner with the scanning equipment in the TARDIS.

It was just as she thought; the alien ships, primitive as they were, made from a mishmash of chunks of metal held together by metal girders, but they were bristling with batteries of weapons' lenses and missiles. The Pirate's eyes only needed to scan the ships to tell how they worked, and she knew that the ships were just no match for what the Master had.

The Master, who liked the thought of being a so-called sporting gentleman, let the aliens fire first, but none of the weapons managed to make any contact with the hulls of the robot ships. They were shielded with the same technology as a TARDIS forcefield, nothing short of a spike from a supernova could get through that. These aliens didn't have a chance.

The Pirate watched grimly as they were picked out of space. The battle computers had been programmed to believe they were invincible and backed by advanced technology, it would not take long. As she watched the battle unfold, the Pirate was surprised when three of the robots detached themselves from the computer connection.

"What are you doing?" she asked, her hand automatically going to her blaster…..

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On the bridge of the flagship, the Master was standing a little further away from his robots as they silently conducted the battle. He knew from his personal palm scanner which helped him to control and survey the robots that his creations were quickly overcoming the battle - and while some of the fighter's loss was frustrating, it didn't pose a problem; the fighter's cybernetic technology would be sending the fighter's 'memories' back to the factory worlds, and they would be integrated into the new fighters, so the aliens wouldn't be able to play the same tricks again.

Part of the Master felt a little bit sorry for the aliens in this part of the universe, but truthfully they were in the way of a power base he wished to set up for himself before he moved outward. He had learnt to begin small and it had worked so far. It would take time to truly solidify his power base here, but it would happen in time. After all, he was a Time Lord, and he had a long lifespan. But the rest of his time was taken wondering what to do about his fellow Time Lady.

The Master had been in two minds about what he had planned, but ever since the Pirate re-entered his life his plans to use her had fallen through. She was just too dangerous, but while the Master would have been happy to try to convert her to his way of thinking he knew it would have been impossible.

The Pirate spent most if not all of her time away from him, so there wasn't much of an opportunity for him to either try to manipulate the Time Lady's mind or spend time with her to get through the hardened persona the woman had. It was possible though difficult for Time Lords to manipulate the minds of their own people, but it took plenty of time for that to take place, and the Master hadn't been able to find that time in the case of the Pirate.

She wanted to separate from their 'deal' though the Master genuinely didn't care about what she did since he thought it kind of beneath her to just steal from ships and planets. The only reason he had even given her the deal in the first place was so then he could find an opportunity to broker an agreement that would see them rule together.

But alas, she was simply not interested, and the Master had to see that he hadn't helped in that regard with his controlling and demanding manner, and she had simply gone out of her way to stay away from him.

The Pirate had become boring for him, so she had to die. It was regrettable, but it had to be done. She had been sent to a robot ship where the robot crew would deal with her.

He stood on the control deck of the flagship, watching as his victory unfolded when suddenly one of his robot ships exploded. The Master, surprised by the blast, threw a hand over his eyes to protect them from the glare. When the glare receded enough for his eyes to adjust to the light, the Master slowly lowered his hand, befuddled and confused. What had just happened? The robots had been programmed to kill the Pirate, not blow their ship up.

Confusion turned quickly into horror when all of the robot ships blew up or lost power, and since the robots within received their energy directly from the ship itself, they were hopeless to do anything to stop it.

The horror of the Time Lord felt only became worse when the aliens, detecting the weaknesses of the enemy robot ships began increasing their barrages against his ships. The Master staggered around the bridge of his flagship as the blasts impacted against the hull, but the alloys the ship was made from was too strong, and it deflected the greater majority of the energy produced by the weapons being fired against the ship. The Master had known what he was doing when he designed the ships, and he had used everything short of Block Transfer computations to make his fleet indestructible.

But they were vulnerable.

What was the point of having a space war if he didn't lose a few ships, and besides he needed to have a crack army of robots that had their knowledge downloaded into their computers by the master battle computers, but only if a few ships and robots were destroyed, not an entire fleet!

The Master desperately checked the controls and the computers - the flagship was the only ship in the fleet designed to be operated by the robots and the battle computers but also had the facilities for him to use to control and direct their actions. A few desperate minutes later, and the Master was close to screaming in anger, fear, and frustration. Nothing was working! And then the Master realised, to his ever-increasing horror, that the central computer core that ran through the ship had been crippled. It was as though the control hubs were no longer there. The ship rocked again as another blast impacted, but the Master had no idea where it had hit.

Swallowing his anger, the Time Lord headed for the alcove where his TARDIS had been placed when he heard a familiar sound of another TARDIS materialising right in front of him. The Master turned in surprise, he had thought that the Pirate had been dealt with..

But no, the TARDIS she used materialised right before him, blocking his path to his own TARDIS. The door opened and the Pirate stepped out. The moment he laid his eyes on her, the Master knew she was in a bad way. Her appearance, usually so neat, was bedraggled, and there was an almost ethereal glow to her face.

The Time Lady glared at him, pain showing in eye move she made, the grimace she had on her face as she tried to hold back the pain she was clearly feeling. "I want a word with you."

The Master had been stunned by the sudden arrival of the Time Lady he had ordered to be killed, but he had quickly recovered. "What happened? The robot ships are deactivating-,"

"I know. I deactivated them," the Pirate interrupted as she drew out her blaster and pointed it at her.

The Master was too stunned to notice the blaster. To him, it may as well have been a torch or a flower. "You did what?" he hissed. "Do you realise what you've done?"

"Oh, believe me," the Pirate coughed out, "I do. Just like I know you tried to have me killed. Do you want to know what happened on that death trap you sent me too? Alright, I'll tell you…."

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 _The Pirate was surprised by the robots detaching themselves from their consoles. "What are you doing?" she asked, her hand automatically going to her blaster…. Just as the robots began to fire on her, but using the reflexes born of practice, she dodged the first laser bolts fired as she ducked down by one of the consoles before the firing stopped._

 _The Time Lady paused, her senses going haywire as she tried to work out what was going on. For a moment, she wondered if this was some kind of computer glitch because the alternative was too horrible to contemplate. Even for the Master, that was going too far._

 _None of the robots had fired since she had ducked down by her console and none of them seemed remotely interested in approaching her, though she couldn't understand what kind of logic they were using, but then she thought that it was hardwired into their systems to never destroy any of the consoles and computer interfaces._

 _That made sense. The robots and the computers interfaced together, and if they were damaged then it wouldn't be possible for them to do so, and the Master would want them to be interfaced properly so then their tasks could be carried out. But if the Master was behind this attack on her, then his orders and their programming must be warring with each other._

 _She didn't want to believe the Master wanted her dead, even though things between the pair of them had not been going great. She knew he was a bit mad, in a driven kind of way, but she had never imagined he would try to murder her._

 _The Pirate had spent enough time around the Master and his robots to know that every command he entered was directed by a command hub on his flagship so he would have direct control. The Master's technology may be beyond the scope of the local aliens in this distant, primitive galaxy, but they wouldn't be much of a problem for her._

 _If she could get on the flagship, access the computer, then she would find out if her suspicions were true. But it was hard for her to move - the console was protecting her, but as soon as she moved, one of those robots would fire at her. Or all of them…_

 _Actually, that gave her an idea…._

 _The Pirate closed her eyes and concentrated on the local time, moulding it and slowing it down. She stepped up slowly, keeping her eyes closed and felt her way around the console, but keeping a tight grip on her blaster._

 _She opened her eyes and time resumed. The robots were momentarily taken aback by her sudden appearance, but their confusion did not last too long._

 _They began to fire on her again, and she threw herself to the deck even as their laser bolts whizzed over her form and smashed into the console and the wall interfaces, destroying them instantly. The robots began to shake as they registered what they had done, but the Pirate didn't give them the chance to do anything about it. From her position on the deck plating, the Pirate didn't have any trouble pointing her blaster up at the robots, and she targeted their most vulnerable points, taking care not to damage their chest units because there were hydrogen fuel cells inside them. Here and there, one of the robots would find their knee joints shot out followed closely by the blasts to their optical sensors._

 _Finally, when it was over, the Pirate stood up cautiously, and she looked around the bridge quickly in case one of the robots had managed to hide somewhere without her knowledge, but there wasn't anything there. The Pirate finally breathed a sigh of relief, and she hurried to her TARDIS._

 _00000000000000000_

 _After a short-hop, the Pirate's TARDIS materialised onboard the Master's robotic flagship, in the computer hub. The scanner view gave only a small 360 degree view of the place the TARDIS had materialised in, and while the controls of the scanner could move the view up she knew that her ship had landed in a small part of a massive horizontal computer core that ran through the ship. The computer system was an enormous collection of trays containing memory acids and ordinary hard drives lashed together to provide the ship and the robots that crewed it with the processing information that they needed._

 _The Master had made the system extremely easy to get into, mostly because he would sometimes use his TARDIS to communicate with it, so it wasn't too difficult for her to hack into the computer. The moment she checked the system and went through the databank of the computer, her worst fears were confirmed._

 _The robots had received orders to kill her from the Master, and for a moment the Pirate was too stunned to believe what she was reading… She had known things were rough between her and the Master, and while she had suspected her old school friend had something to do with the attack on the robot ship, she had hoped it wasn't true. She had known that the Master had gone a bit sick in the head, which had already begun when he had lost his marbles looking into the Untempered Schism as a child but when he had joined those revolutionary maniacs on Gallifrey…. But to go this far._

 _Once she was over her surprise and sadness that her old friend would want to have her killed, the Pirate checked the rest of the information._

 _The Master had placed the command into the robot command circuit not long after they had reunited - wait, that was ages ago! The Pirate gasped in surprise at just how many contingencies the other Time Lord had, and after getting over THAT shock, though truthfully when she had a few more seconds to process the matter, she could see why the Master had done it, she checked over the displays showing the linkages she had set up between her TARDIS and the computer core._

 _The Master had placed the command into the network, but he had carefully inputted it so when he added a new piece of computer code the robots wouldn't react. The Pirate felt absolutely cold when she realised that all the time she and her old friend had been together since their reunion, though whether she could still think of him as a friend after what he'd done and what she'd just learnt, she couldn't say, he had been planning to kill her if she didn't tow the line._

 _The cold the Pirate had been feeling faded, and pure rage shot through her. He had tried to kill her when she crossed the line in his mind, he hadn't cared about her at all._

 _Now he was going to pay._

 _The Pirate knew she couldn't access the Master's computers from the TARDIS - even if she could somehow find out what codes he'd placed into it in case the robots failed him or things became too hot for the Master to handle, she knew they'd probably be locked by his isomorphic code. There was nothing else for it, she would have to leave and destroy the computer from there. The flagship controlled and governed the entire system with the Master in the centre of it all._

 _So all she would need to do was destroy it._

 _The Pirate took out the blaster from her holster and checked the charge before she took out the power cell and replaced it with a fresh one (she hoped that what she had in mind meant she didn't need to use it) before she triggered the door control and left the TARDIS. She had never been in the flagship's computer core before, but when she stepped out of the TARDIS she could see that this was going to be easier than she imagined it to be. The Master clearly thought that his weapons and the metals his ships were made from would protect his little empire. Typical arrogance, really._

 _The Pirate walked over to one of the consoles and examined it. It was clearly designed to be used by both the Master and the robots, so she had no trouble with it. The first thing the Time Lady did was take the console apart by breaking open the maintenance panel and peering inside to get an idea of what she was dealing it. For the next five minutes she examined the circuitry to get an idea how it all worked, and then when she was finished she went to the console itself and began accessing it before she inputted the commands to shut down the robots and their battle computers. Or at least tried too._

 _It took her only a moment to realise that the Master had locked the entire system with his own isomorphic print, and there was no way she could get through that._

 _Well, that meant the old-fashioned way._

 _Somehow the Pirate didn't mind that method, and she took out the blaster and she began to fire at every computer that was nearby. Consoles exploded, and tanks filled with coolants burst, sending sparks and fluids all over the place as alarms began to blare as the computers began shutting down. But the Pirate was distracted when she heard the sounds of scuttling behind her, and she turned around and found a number of robots there. They were like spiders, spheres mounted on segmented, boneless metal legs ending in solid points. The Pirate lifted her blaster and began firing at them, and she managed to destroy a few of the robots, but they learnt quickly. They swarmed over the blackened and blasted remains of the consoles and coolant tanks trying to reach her and pushing her away from the TARDIS._

 _As they drew closer to her, the closest robots opened fire on her and she fired back. The robots were comparatively tiny compared to the humanoid variety she had encountered so far, which meant they could fit in smaller nooks and crannies near her, so she was quickly surrounded but she fired more blasts._

 _But then…. she was shot in the back by one of the robots. The Pirate screamed and fell to the ground to her knees. The robots nearby didn't do anything, they just observed her, scanning her threat level while she was downed._

 _The Pirate was shaking, the pain in her back burned through her body, and she could feel the adrenaline in her veins making her muscles tremble before she felt another burning feeling in her body. She looked down at her hands and spotted a burning ethereal glow under the skin._

 _She was regenerating._

 _For a second the Pirate was virtually paralysed as she took in the glow, but then she remembered where she was. She was in the computer core of the Master's flagship, and she was trying to destroy the place. There were hostile robots all around her that would kill her if she made any further hostile movement. She lifted her head up, stopping when she heard the sounds of the robots' sudden clicking that they made whenever they moved and saw a narrow gap between a cooling tank and a computer databank. She gasped hoarsely in pain as she tried to move towards it, and she felt the blaster still wrapped in her hands. She looked down at the weapon numbly, the pain fogging her mind as the regeneration began to take hold of her consciousness._

 _It was getting hard to concentrate, but there was something about the blaster that was calling to her…_

 _She looked down at the blaster, the glow in her hands glowing brighter and brighter as the regenerative energy began to build up, and then she looked up when she saw a monitor that she had missed. The monitor was connected to the external monitoring system, and she could see the crude spacecraft outside the hull firing nuclear missiles at the Master's ships -_

 _That was it!_

 _Her blaster, it was powered by an atomic power cell. She had replaced the last one because the energy inside needed time to loop back around, and be back to full strength. Keeping her back to the robots, the Pirate's hands went carefully over the weapon, and one of the warning lights lit up. The gun was on overload._

 _Slowing down time once again, the Pirate threw the blaster into the air to give her the chance to get through the gap and give herself some cover._

 _Once time resumed the blaster exploded, though she hadn't slowed time down enough for it to be really noticeable but giving her the valuable few moments to get clear. The explosion in the enclosed space ripped through the computer banks and the remaining, if damaged, coolant tanks. The blast threw the Pirate forwards and she groaned as she bumped her head on the ground._

" _Ow," she winced but she picked herself up and headed for the TARDIS._

 _As she struggled to fight the pain through sheer willpower to wrestle the key out of the pocket, the Pirate thought through what she had done. She knew that the Master's computers were all interconnected, like a body where blood was being circulated through the veins and arteries, though in this case the flagship was the centre. Without the signals and the connections, the robots and the automated systems the Master had set up were either shutting down or were being destroyed._

 _The Pirate found the key and opened the door before heading for the console. She had one last place to go before she regenerated…._

00000000000000000000000000000000

"I set the controls for the bridge," the Pirate finished off her explanation to the listening Master. The other Time Lord seemed almost insanely calm for someone whose plans had begun to crumble around him. "I monitored the battle from the TARDIS, and I saw that the computers onboard your other ships were desperate for instructions, so I provided them."

The Master looked on, unaffected when the Pirate groaned in agony, but she quickly recovered before he could do anything to wrestle control of that blaster off her. "So you lowered their remaining defences, and then let those aliens attack?"

"Yes. You had ordered your robots to attack me, so I thought why not get rid of them?" The grin the Pirate sent his way was grim and pained. "What I don't understand is why you did it in the first place?"

"I had wanted to make you my queen, you would have had power over millions, but you refused my advances-," the Master replied but the Pirate interrupted him impatiently; she was regenerating and she didn't have much time for this.

"That's because I wasn't interested in ruling anything. I never have, but you've never understood that, have you? You decided to kill me simply because I wasn't interested when you could have just accepted the reality," the Pirate snapped angrily, holding down another surge of pain; she wasn't sure how much longer she had left, but it was coming. She could feel it.

She had just about had enough of this.

The Pirate levelled the blaster at the Master's chest.

The Master stepped back slightly, arms raised mockingly. "You don't have the courage to do it, Pirate-," but the Pirate shot him in the chest, angry with the mocking way he'd just spoken her chosen title. The Pirate watched coldly as the Master fell to the ground, gasping in pain and angry surprise, looking at his hands as they began to glow exactly like hers were glowing.

"It's no more than you deserve," she whispered to herself, holding back her own regeneration as she watched the Master, always desperate to save his own neck, immediately opened his arms as if he was about to hug her, but the glare of hatred on his face contradicted that. "This isn't over, Pirate," he said, his face and body glowing with the same type of energy radiating off her. Her hands were beginning to glow even more.

The Pirate stepped back inside her TARDIS and instantly dematerialised. She could have waited for the Master's regeneration and then shot him as soon as he came out of it, relying on the post-regenerative trauma to help her deal with him in his weakened state, but she didn't have the time. She wanted to get away and get her own regeneration out of the way.

Quickly.

Her hands trembling as she set the controls, the Pirate waited until the sounds of the TARDIS's dematerialisation was over before she closed her eyes and stepped away from the console. Her hands were glowing, and the energy began streaming faster and faster. The pain was incredible and unbelievable for her, and she realised why Time Lords tended to try to not think or speak about regeneration.

She took a few deep breaths, mentally saying goodbye to an incarnation that had served her so well - after all, she had been through a lot with this body; she had thwarted Anzor's little plan to frame her, fleeing Gallifrey while unsure if the High Council's sentence was still valid, but she didn't care.

She remembered how she had used her TARDIS to begin her career in piracy, she had learnt so much in this life.

And now she was about to regenerate.

The Pirate threw out her arms when the regeneration surged through her…..

0000000000000000000000000

And then the Pirate, the new second Pirate, stood in ill-fitting clothes, looked around the console room in surprise, clenching her jaw in agony as her newly regenerated body and senses were overwhelmed by the stimuli around her.

"No," she grunted as she tried to hold back the overwhelming overload of information. "Concentrate. Concentrate," she instructed herself and focused on the time rotor of the console. Once it was over, she looked around the console room, taking deep breaths and feeling the double heat beat in her chest.

The Pirate walked around the console room slowly, letting herself become accustomed to her new form. She felt that she was still the same height as her previous body. She examined herself for a moment, and she found some of her hair. It was a dark brunette, no it was dark blonde. Hm, that was new, she thought to herself before she winced. She needed time to recover.

Checking the controls, the Pirate set the coordinates to a random destination. She had a new incarnation and she wanted to relax, but she didn't want to go anywhere that she knew for that. She wanted to be surprised. As her new hands went over the controls, she paused. This would take getting used to, she thought to herself before she finished her work.

00000000000000000000000000000

The End.


End file.
